


Best Endeavours

by WareWolf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: An entirely non-canon season 12, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-07-21 22:08:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 50,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7406974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WareWolf/pseuds/WareWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bobby Singer, back on Earth due to angelic machinations, has joined the hunt for Lucifer.  Unofficial foster-father to Sam and Dean Winchester;  Bobby still has a part to play in their lives and perhaps also in the redemption of the powerful, isolated and damaged King of Hell.</p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Settling back into Heaven wasn’t as easy as Bobby Singer expected after he’d been contacted by Sam Winchester.  Of course, there’d been the little problem of convincing the angels that he hadn’t been involved; had only been wandering confused in the corridors with the rest of the stirred-up souls called variations of his name.  He still thought the angels hadn’t quite believed him.  Funny, that, but as a man who’d spent years answering phones as other people, he had been convincing enough.

 Bobby had expected to settle, to largely forget most of his part in that crazy scheme of Sam and Castiel to break Metatron out of prison and sort out Dean’s Mark of Cain problem.  He _wasn’t_ on the ground any more and he knew that his essence would gradually fade over time, a long, long time maybe, but even souls didn’t last forever.  Bobby wasn’t sure what did happen – just one of the many, many things Heaven kept to itself – but he didn’t think they were used up or eaten the way they were in Hell.  Heaven had a nicer way of doing things.  A nicer way of keeping you prisoner.

Months later, Bobby still knew he was a prisoner.  It felt as though that door he had opened to Earth had let a fresh, cold wind sweep through the warm comfort of his house, reproduced in Heaven around him, and woken him from the Heavenly state of bliss, where time didn’t mean anything any more.  He cast around and searched and planned until he found the Roadhouse, Ash’s Heaven which he had made available to all those who had known it in life.  Most of them were held in that same state of easy bliss, except Ash, who was not one to let any rules bind him.

“What if we could go back,”  Bobby began, sitting at the bar next to Ash.  Outside it was evening, always evening in summer, because that was how Ash liked it.  The door was open and folk moved in and out, most of them indistinct shapes, the sleepers, those closest to fading into nothing.  Even Karen, Bobby’s own wife,  talked only of the past and did not hear him when he told her he had helped Sam and Dean. 

“Not possible, man,”  Ash said, regretful.  “The no body thing is kind of a problem, you know.”

“The angels can use vessels…”

“I don’t need to answer that one, do I?”

“Guess not,”  Bobby said, looking around at the comfortable surroundings, hearing the laughter mixed with a country music track, everything just right, a merging of all the best evenings the Roadhouse had ever had.  He hoped to see Ellen, whom he thought might be the most ‘awake’ of the souls he knew, aside from Ash, but she didn’t answer his thought.  He clung to that small frustration, knowing that those things would help keep him aware.  Demons took vessels, he thought;  they didn’t ask, they just bulled their way in and shoved down the awareness of the human they possessed.

He didn’t ever plan to follow the demonic way, but it was something that had to be thought through.  A soul in Hell could ultimately come back, in a way, but they did so as a twisted thing.  He had spent some time in Hell before the boys had bailed him out and finally freed his spirit….to come here, which was not freedom at all.

Ash put down a beer in front of him.  Bobby muttered thanks and picked it up, knowing it would be perfect.  When had that started annoying him about Heaven?  He glanced at the empty seat on his right, wondering who he had expected to be there.  He’d gotten used to visits from somebody, not the boys, somebody who had shown up and insulted his booze, yet who had occasionally shown up next to him when he went out for a drink.  Something about bones, he thought, bones and whisky and….sulphur.  “Crowley,”  he said, the name finally coming to him.  “He’d like this place.”

“Who?”  Ash asked.

“Demon I used to know,”  Bobby muttered.  “Sam and Dean ran into him a coupla times and I, uh, made a deal with him at one point.  He went back on his promise to give me my soul back – look, it’s a long story.  He had it for a year before me and the boys managed to find his bones and threaten the bastard enough….”

“You believed a demon?”  Ash grinned.  “I’m shattered, Bobby.  Kind of surprised you’re _here_ , after something like that.”

“Yeah, he said I didn’t read the small print about him only needing to use ‘best endeavours’ to give me back my soul, made these constipated groans and said he just couldn’t.  He laughed at me,”  Bobby grumbled.  “And he kept showin’ up after that, like we were buddies.  For some reason I was thinkin’ of him perched on that stool there.”

“And you couldn’t ward your house against one demon walking in there?”

“Could have, I guess, but I never knew when he’d show.”  And, Bobby thought, the realisation coming to him slowly, he hadn’t wanted to.  Gods, thinking about Crowley here was like swimming through mud.  He muttered something along those lines and Ash nodded sagely.

“We’re in the Heaven program, man, and that computer’s got safeguards against thinking certain things.  How else do you think Heaven keeps us all in such a good mood, huh?  Even when things get stirred up, like when a certain hunter got a certain call from below, we calm right down, like stupid sheep.  Baaaaa.”

_Bobby pictured Crowley in his mind;  Crowley as he’d been early on, during that year when he’d taunted and teased Bobby about his soul.  Clean-shaven, round-faced, dapper and demonically cheerful, dark green eyes occasionally showing red flames.  Always in an expensive black suit, silk shirt, silver paisley tie.  Always with the stupid pet names ….darling … love … sweetheart … pet . . . and never, ever shutting up.  Yet Bobby found himself grinning at the memories.  There was a time a few months after they’d threatened Crowley with the burning of his human bones that he had thought the demon gone for good.  The discovery that hunters really could threaten him had no doubt come as a shock, and Bobby hadn’t expected to see Crowley again, unless secure inside a summoning circle when the boys wanted to pressure him to do something._

_“Hello, Robert.”_

_It was winter and he’d built a fire in the hearth, tugged his favourite armchair close to it and settled in with a mug of coffee and a book, actual fiction for once.  All relaxation fled when he heard that familiar drawling British accent and turned to see Crowley standing in the entranceway, two glasses in one hand and a bottle of his favourite Glenncraig whisky in the other._

_“Miss me, darling?”_

_“Like a haemorrhoid in my ass,”  Bobby growled back at him._

_“Now, now, love, be nice.  I’ve decided to continue your alcohol education despite our little problem a while back.”  The other armchair moved itself across from where Bobby sat and with a blink, Crowley was in it, filling the glasses and holding one out to Bobby, a look of hopeful inquiry on his face.  And Bobby, despite his startlement, reached out a hand to take it……_

Now, in his afterlife, he smiled at the memory and Ash snickered.  “At least Heaven doesn’t  make you think clean all the time, Bobby.”

“Wasn’t thinkin’ dirty,”  Bobby said calmly.  “Just remembering one time Crowley dropped in to see me, is all.”

“So how well did ya know this demon?”

“Probably better than I should’ve,”  Bobby admitted. 

“Maybe he could help spring you, if you want to go back that bad,”  Ash suggested idly, as he began to move along the bar towards another customer.   Bobby snorted disbelief at that idea.  Crowley was powerful, as demons went, but no demon could enter Heaven.  _If I opened that door again and walked through, what would really happen?  Would I be a damned ghost again?_   That wouldn’t be good,  Bobby knew.  He couldn’t recreate the despair and anger of his time as a vengeful spirit, but he remembered his eventual knowledge that it could not continue. 

He found himself back in his Heaven, with no clear idea of how he had gotten there.  That was what the place was like;  you got the feeling you wanted to be home and you were home instantly.  He thumped down in the armchair and glanced across to the other, where once Karen had sat.  He had loved her so intensely;  everyone had used the word “soul mates,” not just him, but here, well, they had moved on.  Though they saw one another frequently, they didn’t share the same Heaven.  Why had that never even occurred to him as odd?   His Heaven had given him the empty chair to look at, after all.

_“So glum, Robert,”  Crowley said, lifting his glass to admire the whisky in the firelight.  “You haven’t even used bad language to me yet tonight.”_

_“Any time you like,”  Bobby muttered, but his heart was not in it.  He had felt a lift in his spirits when Crowley showed up that evening, because the demon’s company at least distracted him from his own thoughts.  “It’s the anniversary of Karen’s death.”_

_“Ah.”  Crowley knew well enough who Karen was, and that she had died twice by Bobby’s hand, once when she had been possessed by a demon and he, not yet a hunter, had not had the skills to try to save her.  Then she had come back to him as an undead, a zombie, and torn his heart a second time.  Bobby thought if Crowley made some sort of crass joke, he might well break the glass he held and try to stab the demon king’s own heart with it.  To his surprise, though, Crowley only set the glass down neatly and rose to his feet.  “I’ll be on my way, then; don’t want to intrude.”_

_Bobby wanted to laugh at that, if his mood hadn’t been so sombre.  He supposed this was Crowley’s way of apologising for_ unintentionally _upsetting him.  Gods knew the demon did it on purpose a score of times every time he spoke to Bobby.  “No…it’s okay, no reason you should have known.”_  


	2. Chapter 2

Bobby reflected that he’d never exactly said he wanted Crowley to stay and the demon never exactly acknowledged it, but he, well, his teasing had been a bit milder that night.  Not long after had come the Leviathan creatures, and the bullet with his name on it.

Now time had no meaning, or not in relation to Earth.  There was no reliable succession of nights and days, no news from beyond the wall.  There was no wall to go and look at and plan to climb, only the endless.  Keep walking in any direction, which for him meant out of Singer Salvage, and he would find himself walking back in.  He wanted to feel tired, damn it, to go to bed after a day’s work, to get up with things to do.  And he was scared, deep down, because it wasn’t right to feel like this in Heaven, where he should be at peace.

“Crowley?”  he said into the silence.  “Talk to me….”

Sometime later Bobby slept, as near as you did in Heaven, which was a delicious coasting along, a succession of dreams that were all his brightest memories, until abruptly a dream of being on a hunt, Rufus at his side, changed abruptly and he found himself in a dark room.  The only light was firelight, from a hearth over by the wall, and a stocky figure nearby, poking rather ineffectually at the dying embers with the stick that stood nearby.  Bobby identified him by his movements alone, and then by the voice, “Hello, darling.”

“You’re only gonna put the fire out, doing like that, idjit,”  Bobby greeted, feeling oddly relieved.  Another lucid dream, that’s all it was, back in his house with Crowley come to visit, because he’d been in his mind and Heaven supposed this was what he wanted to relive.  “Never mind, just leave it alone.  You want a drink?”

The demon turned, the firelight catching his eyes like those of a wild creature.  He had grown a beard, Bobby saw with amusement, a short, neatly trimmed beard that was probably supposed to make him look dignified, kingly, or one of those other adjectives Crowley was fond of.  He wondered why he’d be seeing him like that, especially with grey in that beard.  Crowley wore the same black suit, shirt and silver paisley tie, but he seemed older, grimmer, as he faced Bobby, his eyebrow quirked in that familiar way as he smiled.

“You’re the one who wanted a chat, love.”

Bobby’s heart felt oddly lighter as he met Crowley’s gaze.  “I dunno how this can be happening.  It’s a dream, right?”

“You go on thinking that if you want to,”  the demon soothed.

“You look like some shit’s been happening to you,”  Bobby remarked.  “How have things been?”

Crowley opened his mouth to answer, but only coughed and looked irritated.  He tried again, got the same result and finally asked, “I don’t suppose you shut-ins of the pearly realms get much news, do you?”

“No news,”  Bobby growled.  “Nothin’ but the damned everlasting bliss.”

“It doesn’t seem to have done much for you, darling,”  Crowley observed, coming closer.

“Sam contacted me; they needed somebody in Heaven to open a gate to smuggle some rogue angel out from prison, that had some answers about the Mark of Cain on Dean.”

Maybe Crowley couldn’t give him news – it sure looked like he had meant to speak both times and then at the last second found himself unable – but his face, expressive as always, indicated that Bobby might not have the full details on that one.  The light level in the room had risen as the flames flickered higher, apparently of their own volition.  It might be his old living room, or some hodgepodge of general living rooms from his memory; he neither knew nor cared.  Was this Crowley’s own dream he had somehow entered, or his?  The demon hadn’t seemed surprised, but dreams were like that.

Crowley stepped closer, studying him.  Bobby reached out slowly to touch his shoulder, half-expecting not to touch anything, for Crowley to become mist or disappear or turn into something else, the way it happened in dreams.  But he was solid underneath Bobby’s hand and did not move away from his hold.  “I was thinkin’ how I wanted to talk to you and somehow I am.  Heaven gives us the dreams we want, you know…”

“And I’m the man of your dreams, am I, Robert?”  His tone jolted Bobby; it was bitter, angry, not the usual teasing.   

“What the hell happened to you?”  Bobby didn’t let go of him and despite his reaction, Crowley still didn’t shift away.  Something had really gotten to him, the hunter thought.  His entire experience of Crowley was of someone cheeky, manipulative and quicksilver, who shrugged everything off, who enjoyed making his deals and a whole lot else Bobby didn’t want to think about.  When he didn’t answer, Bobby sighed. “How long have I been, uh…”

“Dead?  Passed on?  Passed over?”  Again the sudden stop, and a wry look from Crowley.  “I think you brought your feathery censors with you, love.”  He coughed and said, “….my redirection attempt.”

“You referring to kidnapping me – my soul, I guess – on its way to Heaven at last?”  Bobby inquired.  “Seems okay to talk about old times, just not…”  It was his turn to suddenly fall silent, without having meant to do so.  “I think about that sometimes or I try to,”  he told the demon.  “I remember, like, nightmares…Sam and Dean talkin’ to me and then turnin’ into demons, laughing at me.  Still, pretty mild for Hell, huh?”  He absently patted Crowley’s shoulder and the demon smiled, looking perplexed. 

“If you’re asking why I did it, I don’t know that I can tell you, darling,”  Crowley said, his voice that familiar easy rasp, dropping as though he thought Heaven would eavesdrop.  He was probably correct if he did.  “Not anything that would make sense to you, or to demonkind either.”

Bobby considered the things Crowley had thrown in his direction, or towards Sam or Dean, the teasing, flirty sort of jokes, except that Crowley had never seemed the least effeminate to him.  He’d said what he thought would cause the greatest stir.  Or he didn’t care.  Maybe he hadn’t understood his own feelings either, if they were indeed what Bobby guessed.  “You gave me my legs back and you didn’t have to,”  he said slowly.

“I would have been a laughingstock if I’d let that deal stand,”  Crowley exclaimed.  “We’re supposed to at least make an effort, not whip away the soul of some village idiot without the brains to make us work for it.”

“You callin’ me an idjit?”

“If the cap fits, darling…”  Crowley grinned at the aptness of his own remark, glancing up at the faded blue trucker cap Bobby wore.  Bobby couldn’t help it;  he chuckled openly.

“It’s good to argue with you again, Crowley. Look – I probably won’t be allowed to say this – but you know how the boys came back, more’n once?”  He waited for Crowley’s nod.  “Could you help me…”  And the block came, but he had said enough.  Crowley nodded again, then met his eyes.

“I’m part of the system, Robert,”  he said.  “I work to stay on top of things, but I don’t get to buck the rules.  That’s a human thing, you know.”

“If you believed that, Lucifer would still be in charge, instead of in the Cage,”  Bobby argued.  “Lilith sure didn’t follow any damn rules.”

“Yes, she did,”  Crowley said, after a hesitation Bobby wasn’t sure he liked.  “Casting down a ruler of Hell and raising another – herself – in his place, is quite within the rules of the whole lovely system God created.”

“And sidetrackin’ a soul bound for Heaven?”

Crowley didn’t answer at that, but he put a hand up to cover Bobby’s, still on his shoulder.  Bobby didn’t move.  “I’m _still_ getting grief for that,”  Crowley said finally, not saying from whom.   “But if there is anyone I would choose to help, it would be you, Robert.”

And there it was.  Crowley’s eyes, flamelit, openly imploring Bobby.  The hunter felt the connection, the pleasure of understanding and being understood.  “Thanks, Crowley,”  he said quietly.  “I never made you too welcome, when you dropped around.  But however it’s happenin’ now, it’s good to see you.”

Then he felt himself changing, waking….and before he could say anything else, he was awake, his eyes open and seeing his living room before him, the country music playing on his radio.  His Heaven.  His prison.

 

* * *

The angels barged in without asking.  Or knocking.  Or anything, really, Bobby thought, staring in bewilderment from his armchair.  He didn’t recognise any of the vessels they were wearing; a handsome black man who looked like an athlete, despite the constricting gray suit he wore, a blond, corporate woman apparently in her thirties, and to complete the stereotypes, a gray-haired white man, also wearing a suit.

“Make yourselves at home,”  he growled at them.  His previous visit, over the inside help he’d given Sam and Cas, had begun just like this and ended in a bare interrogation cell.   When the angels just stared blankly at him, he sighed and added pointedly, “Is there somethin’ I can do for you or are you happy just to stare at me?”

“We wish to speak to you about your dreams,”  the woman said.  She stood slightly in front of the others and Bobby had picked her as the leader at once.  Despite his intention to remain calm and bland, as a grateful soul should, his eyes widened at her words.  She could only mean one dream, but odd as it was, why should that concern the angels.  He made himself wait instead of questioning her; it would only make them take longer. 

“You are a soul in Heaven,”  she said, accompanied by nods from the two male angels.  “You have no corporeal existence, by which I mean, no physical body.  Do you understand me so far?”

“Yeah,”  Bobby said, unsettled but clear enough.  “So?”

“So you have no dreams, as humans on the earthly plane would understand the word.”

“Hey, wait a minute,”  Bobby growled, forgetting his resolution for patience.  “I’ve had quite a few dreams, I’m sure I have…”  He trailed off, realising he really _didn’t_ know for sure.  The peaceful, drifting existence of the souls, passing through their best memories, mingling with others they’d known in life, that wasn’t sleep, but it sure wasn’t wakefulness as he had known it.  He could not have said whether his last talk with Ash had taken place yesterday, last week or months ago.  There was no sense of time passing for souls in Heaven  Bobby had struggled to stay alert, to _remember_ , ever since the job with Sam and Cas, but Heaven itself soothed all edges and grieving, whether you wanted that or not.

He stared into the clear blue eyes of the female angel, _not_ a woman, no matter how she appeared.  “So what do you say happened?”  he grated out.

“We do not know,”  she said, which left out whatever they _suspected._   “Your state has changed, Robert Singer, since you made the connection to those in the world.  You tried to link with another soul.  Were that soul in Heaven, you would share Heaven for a time.  Visit, as it were.  Were the soul on Earth, you might visit their dreams, which is one of the boons granted by your state as one of the blessed.”  _Right, so that’s what it’s called?_

“Leah,” said the handsome black angel in a reproving tone, which Bobby interpreted as, “ _Get to the point.”_  

“But the one you sought has no soul,”  Leah continued, ignoring her companions.  “You sought the King of Hell, and that wish, had you experienced it on Earth, would have barred you from Heaven forever.”

“Always wondered how your damn double entry book keeping worked,” Bobby growled.  “Do this, go to Heaven.  Do that, go to Hell.”

“As a soul in Heaven, you should have been incapable of any such reprehensible thought,”  Leah said.

“And thinkin’ something doesn’t do any harm,”  Bobby retorted.  “What a person thinks inside their own head is theirs.  I was just rememberin’ Crowley.”  He was pleased to see that the name made all three wince.  “I had dealings with him at home, as you know, but I paid for it and I made it right.”

“This thought weakens the barriers between our realms and potentially gives Hell an entry point,”  Leah told him.

“Oh come on!  It was a stupid dream….or a fantasy if you prefer, though he ain’t exactly my ideal fantasy.”   And one that was fading, in the manner of dreams.  He remembered a dark room, a fireplace, talking with Crowley there.  Something about trying to say something, or listening to Crowley say something, but not being able to.  It seemed crazy, but these angels weren’t laughing.

“You have a bond with him, which was not detected at your entry into Heaven….”

“Oh, for God’s sake,”  Bobby shouted, seeing them wince again before remembering that those words weren’t just bad language here.  “I don’t have a fricking bond with Crowley.  He dragged me into Hell when I should’ve come here the first time.  I don’t know how long I was there – my memory’s not real good about that – but I know I didn’t just waltz in there because I wanted to.  The boys – Sam and Dean – they got me out – you have to know all this.  Don’t you?”  That got the faintest of nods from all three.  “Crowley – sure, I thought he was interestin’, for a demon, but we haven’t got any stupid _bond_.  Look, if you’ve been reading my mind, feel free to have another dig and work that out.”

“This is known,”  Leah agreed.  “But however it came about, you sought to link with him.  He is not human, and he was able to link back with you as no mortal soul could have.  Ultimately, he could use that to access Heaven itself.”

“Really don’t think he wants to,”  Bobby said.

“That does not matter,”  Leah said, with the tone of a mother ending an argument among her children.  “It has been decided.  We will revoke you.  Your energy would have returned to the system in any event, but we will advance the time.”

“What are you talking about?”  Bobby demanded, getting up from his chair, though he felt heavy and awkward as though he suddenly weighed a whole lot more.  His head felt fuzzy and sick.  “If you throw me out, I’ll just be a ghost again, won’t I?”

“No.  You will incorporate.  There are things we need to learn.”

And he was thrust screaming from Heaven.


	3. Chapter 3

 

The method of eviction from Heaven was pure angelic vindictiveness.  Bobby Singer knew somehow that they could have done this gently, as though he was a soul being placed in an infant consciousness.  He was aware of a blasting heat around him, feeling like his skin was being torn off and bones exposed like thorns to the fire.   He felt a long sensation of falling, struggling to open his eyes against a blinding wind, suddenly cold as the Arctic on his face and body.

He fell naked and aware and in agony to earth.

 _Illusion_ , he fought to tell himself, desperately clinging to language and knowledge.  _They could just pass me through a door.  They didn’t_ really _just drop me off a cliff!_

The heaviness of flesh and mortality closed around him.  Mortal lungs sucked in a huge painful gulp of air and his eyes burned as the sun touched them.  Bobby Singer opened his eyes.  He was lying on his back on grass, looking up at a clear afternoon sky.  Spring, he thought, but there was a chill in the air, and a dew-dampness on his flesh.  His unclothed flesh.  Beyond that, he had no clue at all as to where he was in the world.

He had been in Heaven;  that memory was there, but strangely foggy, details refusing to come.  Instead, Bobby’s last memories from life flooded insistently in; his failing body in a hospital bed, followed by a a skittering of dreamlike recollections of fleeing a Reaper and becoming an increasingly vengeful spirit.

He wasn’t broken any more but he felt weighed down and uncomfortable, apart from the whole being naked thing.  He frowned, struggling to call up memories of Heaven.  Karen, Ash….then a bunch of angels talking to him in that snooty way they had, warning him….no, it was gone.  He could think about that later when he’d dealt with his most immediate worry.  Clothes.  The lack of them.  And he wanted to find….someone….he really needed to remember this and he felt panic at the thought that he might not. 

Bobby sat up slowly, not wanting to stand up too fast and find a mob of Girl Scouts or something staring at him.  He felt as though he had woken from a very long sleep, full of confusing dreams, but you were supposed to be in your bed after something like that.  “Could have given me some notice about where I was goin’,”  he said aloud to the empty sky, and thankfully empty field.  “Or asked me.”  But here he was, completely ignorant, completely undressed and without a cell phone.  To get assistance, he was first going to have to find some unfortunate person and ask him or her to call the boys.  He couldn’t call….

“Crowley,”  he said aloud.  Damn it; the ingredients for calling a demon were a touch more tricky than finding a cell phone.  He wondered dully whether he had imagined talking to him, whether Heaven had been playing tricks on him, either as part of the feel-good thing or gathering intel on Hell.  Bobby decided to just start walking and hope to find something he could wear before he had to be seen.

He hadn’t had any luck by the time he found the crossroads.  Well, some luck, he supposed grimly, in that nobody was around to see him.  He wasn’t cold now he had been walking for some hours, but that was the only good news.  There was a town sign – Angels Grove, hint, much, two miles away, so that would be one way to get some pants.  Unless…..

Bobby Singer stood in the centre of the dusty crossroads, surrounded by fields and some scraggly stands of vegetation.  “No, I don’t have any ingredients to call one of you bastards up,”  he said to the empty air.  “But your boss Crowley would be real pleased if you were to tell him Bobby Singer’s here and wants to see him.”  _I hope_ , he added silently.

“Are you flashing me?”  asked a young-sounding voice from behind him.  Bobby closed his eyes for a moment and muttered to himself as he grabbed for a handful of long grass to hold in a strategic spot.

“You better be the crossroads demon and not a Girl Scout,”  he said.

“If I was a Girl Scout, how would you be explaining yourself?”  the voice asked.

Bobby glanced over his shoulder and saw what was apparently a twelve-year-old girl in – oh gods – a scouting uniform.  He stared, suddenly doubtful as to whether this might really be a kid.  She looked mixed race to him, with spiky black hair, elfin and skinny.  There were merit badges on that shirt.  Then she _– it_ , damn it – grinned in a most unchildlike way and its eyes flashed black.  Bobby turned to face it and the creature’s eyebrows lifted.  “Is that for me?”

“Cut that out,”  Bobby growled, adjusting the grass clump.  “I meant what I said.  I’m Robert Singer,  a friend of Crowley’s, and it’ll be to your credit if you tell him I’m here.”

“A friend?”  the demon said and Bobby could well understand its doubtful tone.  “Of Crowley?  Crowley’s credits aren’t worth so much in the bank these days, if you get me.”

“Is he King of Hell these days or not, douchebag?”

“Hard to say.  He’s more the Winchesters bitch these days, you know, especially after Rowena showed up, and then Lucifer…”  The demon shook its head and whistled.  “Now, don’t know.  Lucifer’s in the wind and Crowley hasn’t been around much either, so maybe he’ll be happy to hear your message and maybe he won’t, but I don’t know as I want to get attention from any of them.  I tell you what.  I get him the message, you owe me…”

“I’m not makin’ any deal with you!”  God, he wanted to pin the creature down with a flamethrower in his hand and make it explain everything that it had just said, but all he had now was words and the demon’s curiosity.

“Not a deal.  A debt.  You’ll owe me a future favour.  A good word with the King, if he _is_ still the King.”

“That it?”  Bobby asked distrustfully.  “A good word with Crowley?”

“And protection if I need it,” the demon said.  “Sanctuary if I ask.”

Bobby shrugged.  He didn’t trust this thing, but couldn’t see any danger in agreeing.  “What’s your name then?  Or what can I call you?”

“Scout will do,” the demon smirked.

“Fine.  And can you get me some….”  The demon was gone and Bobby muttered, “Pants,” into the emptiness.  He looked around and trudged wearily to the nearest clump of bushes and got amongst them.  Right now, he’d be happier if a carful of tourists didn’t show up.  So he waited.  At one point he had to move to another clump of bushes, slightly more distant, because of having to use the present area for another purpose.  He hadn’t thought there was anything left to piss;  it had been too long since he had had a drink of water and he had forgotten what thirst felt like.  That scared him a little;  that the demon could simply have taken off, put him down to a bad deal and just ignored him thereafter.  Would embarrassment be enough to make him collapse and die and be shunted either back to Heaven or to the other place, never knowing anything of what had gone on in the living world?

Then he saw a distant cloud of red dust on the gravel road and was steeling himself to step out, a torn branch of greenery held strategically in front of him, his other hand raised to wave the car down, when he saw that it was slowing anyway.  A classic of some kind, black…”Oh damn,”  Bobby Singer muttered aloud.  An Impala.  _The_ Impala.  He stopped, embarrassment overwhelming him, mixed with a reluctance to start this scenario until he’d had some time to think.  The car halted and two familiar figures got out on either side.  And then a third.  Bobby watched Dean Winchester turn on that third, black-suited and stocky against Dean’s height, never mind the looming bulk of Sam.

“Okay, now where’s this person we’ll want to see?”

“Somewhere close to the town sign for Angels Grove, Colorado, so I was told,”  that drawling British voice responded. “There’s a demon I’ll have to eviscerate if it was playing games with me.”

“Me first,”  Dean retorted.

Crowley didn’t answer, which wasn’t like him, Bobby thought.  He was studying the scenario with all his senses, not all of which were limited to human awareness.  “Bobby?”  he asked, so quietly that Bobby would have had to strain to hear him had he not already been so focused on the demon.  Dean started to yell something. 

 "Oh crap,”  Bobby groaned.  “Guys!  Over here!”  

Dean got to him first, Sam behind and he couldn’t see Crowley at first.  He called to Dean to stop, as soon as the hunter got close enough to spot him standing in the bushes.

“I know you gotta be sure,”  he called, his voice cracking with dryness. “But just throw some pants to me first, okay?  All I’m wearin’ is this damn bush.”

“Bobby?”  Dean said, not appearing to hear him, staring at Bobby’s face so hard he looked half-witted, Bobby wanted to tell him.  As for how Dean looked, well, maybe a few years older, still too handsome for his own good, needing to shave…. _haunted_ was the word.  Bobby’s gaze went to Sam, who stopped next to his brother, also studying Bobby, but in him the look was more careful, as though he already assumed this was some monster pretending to be their foster-father. 

“Here you are, Robert,”  Crowley’s voice said.  He strolled up beside the Winchesters like he was anyone, Bobby thought, almost a friend, not a scion of Hell and their mortal enemy.  In his hand were black trousers, probably from one of those fed suits the boys carried around with them.  Sam snatched them from him with a warning glare and tossed them lightly to Bobby.  They snagged on a branch and he had to work them free, giving everyone more to look at than he planned.  When he had them on – they were too big, so evidently belonging to Sam – he sighed in relief and slowly pushed his way through the undergrowth into the open, raising his hands as he noted the automatic in Dean’s hand.

“Crossroads Girl Scout found you then,”  he said to Crowley.

Crowley raised his brows, ignoring the glares he was getting from Sam and Dean.   “It squeaked out your name and where you were and then vanished, almost as though it expected me to do something to it!”

“That so unreasonable?”

“I suppose not,”  Crowley conceded.

“And why’n all that’s sacred, or in your case profane, did you bring Sam and Dean along?  I was gonna approach them a bit more carefully, like when I know what the fuck has happened in the last few years.”

Crowley studied him with an expression Bobby found hard to read.   “Scout Girl was a bit short on the details, love.  I thought it best to bring backup.”

Bobby sighed.  “Fine.  Can we get this over with?”  he asked, a moment before a jet of cold and no-doubt-holy water from his own flask, aimed by Sam, struck him in the face.  “Uh, thanks,”  he said.  A small shower of salt followed the water and Crowley snickered as Bobby again wiped his face, wincing as some of the salt grains slid inside his eyes.

“You wouldn’t be laughing if it was you,”  Bobby muttered at him.  Then both Winchesters came forward to hug him, first Dean and then Sam, whose embrace almost cracked Bobby’s bones.  _It’s only the water and the damn salt,_ the old hunter told himself as he wiped his eyes for the third time.  This was real, as nothing in the afterlife had felt real.

“Well, thanks for letting us know, I guess,”  Dean said to Crowley, still patting Bobby’s shoulder and grinning at Sam.  “We’ll take it from here.”

Bobby looked at Crowley just in time, seeing him as though for the first time; a stockily built man in a neat black suit, apparently middle aged, silver in his short beard, his dark hair getting a bit thinner on top, and a stricken look in his green eyes before he schooled his face to a look of indifference.  “Hold on a moment, Dean,”  Bobby said slowly.  “If it wasn’t for Crowley I wouldn’t be down here.  I’m….forgetting real fast, the angels did something to cause that….but I’ve been able to talk to Crowley, while I was in Heaven, kind of in dreams.  That’s why I sent the crossroads demon to get him.”

“You didn’t have to make a deal with it, did you?”  Dean asked, just before Sam asked, “Did you kiss her?”

“Guys!”  Bobby groaned.  “No!  She was about twelve – the meatsuit was, I mean.  She got me to promise I’d run interference if you got annoyed with her,”  this to Crowley, “and to put in a good word if you were, ahem, in a position to grant favours.  So just, please, can we get me to something to drink, eat and sleep on, ‘cause I need to do all that stuff again and pretty damn soon.  And,”  he added with a warning growl, “don’t try to brush Crowley off.  Either he’s comin’ or I’m not.”

Crowley, though, looked more resigned than happy with that.  “They’re more likely to stick the magic handcuffs on me, and not in a sexy way,”  he murmured, though the flirting seemed more habit than anything.  “Take care of yourself, Robert.  I’m sure I’ll hear from you boys if you need anything.”

But Bobby pushed Sam out of his way, or at least shifted him a few inches with Sam’s puzzled cooperation, and stalked up to the demon king.  He still felt vulnerable, shirtless and hardly sixpack material, but the tone in Crowley’s voice told him he was about to vanish and Bobby didn’t want that, not until he knew more about what had happened.

“I sent the message to _you_ ,”  he said.  “I need to talk to you.”  He was struggling to focus, shivering now that he had cooled down after his long walk, and his tired mind felt like it was shutting down.  Crowley stepped back a little, Bobby wondering why until the demon shrugged out of his coat and handed it over.

“I’d love to keep you warm another way, darling, but this will do for now,”  he said.

Bobby got thankfully into the coat, which smelled of sulphur and heat, as though Crowley had been standing next to a fire, before he turned to face the gawking Winchesters.  “I need to talk to you, I need to talk to Crowley,”  he growled at them.  “Can everyone behave like civilised beings in one place while we do that?”  They nodded.  “Good.  Let’s go.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a short chapter, but it was this or a humungously long one because I couldn't find another good place to break it up.   
> Also not certain about dates; how long Bobby was in Heaven after he was broken out from Crowley's, ah, custody, so if anyone finds mistakes, please let me know. I don't have a beta.

Crowley followed Bobby into the back seat of the Impala, not even trying for shotgun.  Despite the snipping, Bobby thought there was more easiness between the demon and his boys.  Maybe they had worked together, after he was gone.  He expected them to drive to some motel or other, but Sam turned in his seat to explain to Bobby that they had a drive of around six hours to reach their base in Lebanon, Kansas.  He didn’t mean to doze, not in his first few hours back, but gradually everything fuzzed out and he gave in to fatigue.

He roused some time later, in a sudden panic as he had no idea where he was in time, or place.  He was scrunched somewhat uncomfortably on a car seat, he could figure that much, with his feet wedged against a front seat and his head in somebody’s lap.  “Back with us, sleeping beauty?” came Crowley’s rasping British drawl above him.  Crowley was also rubbing his neck and shoulders, which Bobby thought sleepily he really should object to, but it was too much trouble.  Crowley’s hands were warm and the strong touch felt good.

“We nearly there yet?”  Bobby coughed and Dean called back that they were just about home and Crowley should watch where he was putting his hands.  Crowley’s response of, “Oh, I _am_ , Squirrel,” was not helpful, Bobby decided, but it was too funny to worry about.  He used Crowley to get himself upright again, holding on to his arms and patting the demon on his chest as he subsided against the back of the seat.

“What’s that about _me_ and hands?”  Crowley inquired.

“Hey, I’m not the one complainin’.”

Bobby barely registered his surroundings as Sam and Dean took him down a flight of stairs into a room full of old computer equipment and other junk.  Bobby lost track of Crowley somewhere along the way.  Dean veered off, saying he’d heat something up, but Bobby’s fatigue had knocked out any hunger.  Sam led him onwards, along a corridor with a lino floor and into a room with a bed.  Bobby was a bit alarmed by how out of it he felt, stone cold sober and all.  Sam was saying something about the bed sheets only being used for one night by some friend or another, but Bobby didn’t give a damn.  He was still shuffling in Sam’s pants, and Crowley’s coat, and hoped _somebody_ was going to bring some proper clothes for him.  “Where’s Crowley?” he asked blearily.

 "I told him to wait in the war room,”  Sam said.

Bobby gave him a single confused look and raised his voice.  “Crowley?”

A moment later, the demon shouldered pointedly past Sam, whose look made Bobby wonder just what the hell – pun intended – had been going on.  He really hadn’t been tracking since he was killed.  His time as a ghost had been mostly limited to what was happening around the boys, especially as he got more and more vengeful, losing track of himself.  “Sam,”  he said, “what year is it?”

“2016,”  Sam said, grudgingly letting Crowley move into the centre of the room.  “You’ve been….gone nearly four years, Bobby.”  Slowly the young hunter walked to the bed and sat, looking weary beyond belief.  “Sorry – a lot of crap just went down.”

“What kind of crap?”  Bobby asked.  “What were you huntin’?”  Crowley chuckled and both hunters glared at him.

“God,”  Sam said as though he didn’t believe it himself.  “His sister Amara.  Lucifer.  The end of the world.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it, Moose,”  Crowley murmured.

“Dean got back here only a day before Crowley showed up again.  I seriously thought you’d be busy dealing with your mother for awhile, Crowley.”

“Sorry, darling, I survived,”  Crowley said smugly.

Bobby stared at one, then the other. “Your _mother_?”  He reached out to pat Sam’s shoulder.  “That’s it.  I’ve got no more.  I got to sleep, then we’ll talk.  Don’t kill Crowley.  I want to talk to him too.  Now get off the bed and out of here so I can crash.  I’ll eat later.”

Sam did, switching off the light at Bobby’s request before he shut the door.  Crowley looked at him, unreadable, then followed Sam out.  Bobby stripped, wishing that angels had heard of boxers, and laid the trousers and coat over the single chair, before creakily getting under the covers.  Sam had promised as he left to find some proper clothes for him, but looked like that wouldn’t happen immediately.  Bobby felt aching and weary and not at all up for another life, or whatever remained of his new mortal span.  As he stretched out in the bed, he heard a slight sound and turned, unable to stop a gasp as he saw, by the light from under the door,  a familiar plump outline standing barely a yard from the bed.

“Why the fuck are you still here?  I thought you left with Sam.”

“I’m not “with” Sam or Dean in any way,”  Crowley said, with a snap to his voice.  “If I leave this room, I leave this damn burrow.  We’ve worked together in this last madness, I admit, but they didn’t ask me because they wanted me around.  So I had better say goodbye now, Robert, and if you want to…”

“Crowley, listen,”  Bobby said, stifling a yawn.  “I’m human again.  My bones ache and my head’s not workin’ properly.  Feels like I haven’t had a drink in forever.  I don’t know what you need me to say, but I just have to sleep.  You want to stay here, that’s…well, I’d kinda like that, but seriously, I’m not gonna be any sort of company.  Okay?”  He nodded at the chair.  “Don’t get any weird ideas, all right?”

Crowley settled himself on the chair, muttering softly to himself in a way Bobby found oddly comforting.  He closed his eyes and was almost asleep when he heard the murmur nearby, “I don’t really have any other kind of ideas, love.”

Bobby woke to the sound of Dean’s swearing.  Not music to his ears.  Not even close.  “What the fucking hell is going on?  Get away from him, Crowley!”

Waking as a human was jarring, confusing and uncomfortable.  Cold air hit his skin, telling Bobby he’d lost the covers in the night.  When he opened his eyes the room lights were on full – no morning light down here – and Dean was standing over him, gun in his hand,  furious and deadly.  Bobby swore, grabbing at the blankets, rolling to sit up.  His gaze fell on Crowley, lying on the other side of the bed in his shirt and pants.  His tie was neatly hung over the chair where Bobby had dumped the coat and pants, with his shoes lined up below it. 

“Stand fucking _down_ , Dean!  Sam, where are you?  Is anybody reasonable around here today?”

“I wouldn’t bet on it, darling,”  the demon said softly.  His eyes flared red as Bobby watched and Crowley winked out, reappearing on his feet, on the other side of the bed from Dean, now fully attired in his suit.  Sam appeared behind Dean, with an impressive bed head of mane, wearing his jeans but nothing else.  Bobby spared him a briefly envious look, then had to return his attention to his current problem.

“Did you just walk in on Bobby, Dean?”  Sam demanded.

“I couldn’t find Crowley so I had to check,”  Dean shouted without taking his eyes off the demon in question.  “You know Bobby would never snuggle up to a demon without somethin’ wrong being done to him.”

“I wasn’t snugglin’, you idjit, I was asleep!”

“And you got pretty snuggly with Crowley when you were a demon, didn’t you?”  Sam capped this.

“What the fuck?”  Bobby.

“I was a demon, and I didn’t get…snuggly!”  Dean.

“The triplets would argue differently.”  Crowley.

“You and him….with triplets?”  Sam.  “You never told me about that.”

“Excuse me, ladies!”   Bobby, wrapping a blanket strategically around himself, had finally gotten to his feet.  “I want everybody out of here now!  I want some clothes that fit.  Leave them outside the fricking door.  You and you, out of here.  You…hold it a second.”  At these growled directives, Sam and Dean looked at one another, Dean lowered the gun in his hand and both stared at Crowley, who smiled charmingly and shrugged at them.

“We’ll be outside the door,”  Dean warned and both the brothers left.

“That’s certainly a dampener,”  Crowley said.

Bobby adjusted his blanket and decided to sit down on the bed again.  “Do you have a working brain?  You decided to settle in and stay _all night_ and you didn’t see that coming?”  He waved at the door.

“Wearing a suit to bed is a little uncomfortable, darling.”

“I get that, but if you’ll forgive me the freaking obvious;  you’re a demon!  You don’t have to sleep.  Dean could’ve decided to pepper you with rock salt or whatever he’s got loaded or worse, somethin’ that would have killed you permanently.”

“I doubt that.  I’ve recently been of great assistance to those ungrateful wretches.”

Bobby swore softly and with feeling for a few moments.  “I know I have got to have a really thorough catch up so I can figure out what you’re all talking about, but then….”

“Then come and find me, if you still want to,”  Crowley interrupted.  “Hear my side of things after you’ve listened to theirs.  Gratitude has a short shelf life with your boys, you know, no matter how often I step up.”

“Yeah,”  Bobby murmured.  “I can see how that might be.”  He made to get up again, remembered the blanket and grimaced.  “Don’t suppose you could grab the clothes for me, could you?”

Crowley’s grin was definitely wicked.  “And spoil the chance of you losing your grip on that blanket, love?  Not a chance.”

“What’s the matter with you?”  Bobby growled.  “Even when I was young, I was….ordinary, you know?  I’m nothin’ to look at now.”   He fell silent, meeting Crowley’s eyes, because he could feel himself already blushing and Crowley would not miss that.  “I don’t – I’m not…”

“You treat me like a man,”  Crowley said, a rasping whisper of a voice.  “A living man.  That’s rare beyond price, Robert.”

“Then don’t leave,”  Bobby said.

“If I stay, your boys are going to convince themselves I’ve spelled you in some way.  Also, I have a battle of my own to deal with below stairs.”  Bobby nodded, managed a brief smile.  “See?  Who else would hear that as anything but a demonic threat?”

“Hold on, dammit,”  Bobby said, getting a better hold on the gray blanket that was quickly becoming his best buddy.  “To paraphrase you, Crowley;  if you leave, you leave this place and then that’s it.   You want to be treated like a living man, then you come and be there when I fill in the four years I was . . . away.”

At that, he had Crowley’s full attention and was reminded again of what a dangerous being this demon truly was.  No more teasing or surface charm, just that intent, studying stare and consideration of whether he should simply just remove the human obstacle standing in front of him.  “I don’t remember, love,”  Crowley’s voice was a soft rasp, like a tiger given speech.  He stepped forward and Bobby tensed, but Crowley only turned to sit on the bed next to him.  He lifted a hand slightly and a pile of clothes dropped on the bed, nearly in Bobby’s lap.  He clutched them reflexively.

“Don’t remember what?”  Bobby asked, resigned to having this chat with the King of Hell before he talked to Sam and Dean.  He picked up what turned out to be a blue plaid shirt that looked familiar, maybe something he’d left in the Impala some time, and shrugged the shirt on.

“Being human,”  Crowley said.  “It was rather a long time ago, you know, Robert.  I know you know, since you found my mortal grave.”

“I guess it was,”  the hunter sighed.  “Now, get out so I can change.”

He expected more of Crowley’s snarky humour, but the demon simply shrugged and did as Bobby asked.  He found Dean lounging in the corridor, as promised, but for once Dean didn’t snarl at him, only cocked an eyebrow in that wonderfully inarticulate way he had.

“Robert’s getting changed,”  Crowley said and Dean nodded.

“Sam’s in the library.”


	5. Chapter 5

Crowley walked on without another word to him and soon located Sam, in one of the armchairs, reading something on his laptop rather than a tome from the shelves.  Sam looked up, registering Crowley and Dean behind him in the same instant; on alert and stand down, all at once.  Crowley rather appreciated that watchfulness.  So few humans had it these days, they were no challenge at all.

Dean began to move another chair closer.  Crowley shrugged, extended a hand and two armchairs slid into a semicircle with Sam’s chair.  “Don’t use your powers in here,”  Dean warned, dragging a third chair for himself, without bothering to ask whether Crowley had got the second chair for Bobby.

Crowley shrugged indifferently and sat, not showing that he had even heard the pup’s bark.  He knew all about face saving, but honestly, weren’t they past that by now?  Dean wasn’t even offering drinks, not that he would have accepted.  He had his flask in a coat pocket.

“Where did Rowena take off to?”  Sam asked, evidently recollecting that no one had asked.  She had melted away when they were all in the cemetery, not bothering to wait to find out whether the world was saved or not.  Though she had been buttering Chuck up as though he was the last slice of bread on the planet, she evidently knew better than to rely on his goodwill.  Not when he had a chance to examine just what sort of being Rowena was.

“I don’t know,”  Crowley said flatly.  He too had done the vanishing act, having even more reason than the witch to know how fleeting gratitude to hellspawn could be.  “She went one way, I went the other, not even any goodbyes.  Which is rather how I remember our last moments together, Squirrel.”

“We weren’t _together_ ,”  Dean complained.  Predictable as always, Crowley mused, studying the hunter’s admittedly attractive profile.  Funny how Dean’s machismo was so fragile; the least feint at his masculinity and he would fluff up and hiss.  Normally he would have kept the fun going, but right now he just didn’t feel inclined to bother.  Then Dean surprised him.  “But I guess, yeah, you’re right.  I didn’t say goodbye to you.  I should have.”

“You don’t owe him anything,”  Sam muttered. 

“I did tell you about Bobby,”  Crowley pointed out.

“Not exactly,”  Sam retorted.  “You wouldn’t tell us who we were going to find until we got there.”

“Now, now, Moose.  Demons aren’t exactly reliable, you know.  I could have been tricked into an ambush, so _I_ wasn’t going alone.  And if I’d given you the name, you wouldn’t have taken me with you.  It could have been so much easier if you’d have been willing to let me transport us.”

“And from what Bobby says; your demon told you about Bobby without even making a deal with him,”  Sam said slowly.  “Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”  He threw the question to both of them.  Dean shrugged, looking at his hands as though he expected a bottle of beer to appear in them.  Crowley gave it some thought.

“I don’t know this demon,”  he said.  “She joined Crossroads after I left the role of Crossroads King.  Must be quite recently, though I’d have to check the records.  I don’t know why she’d want a good word with me then, since there’s not a damned thing – ahem - that I could have done for her.  Or now, for that matter.  But she may believe I can; they’re not bright.  So I’ll look into that, if I ever recover the throne again.  I suggest we turn our minds to locating Lucifer, or the save-the-world status is going to go to Defcon One before we know it.  And also, if we have the time, to work out just why Bobby is back.  Because souls don’t come back from Heaven, boys.  That’s strictly a one way trip.  You don’t make angels from humans…”

“So what happens when Bobby dies again?”  Dean asked, grimacing as he said the words.  “He’s not a young guy, so what, twenty years if he’s lucky?  Has his soul been put on the no fly list?”

“Dean,”  Crowley said, exasperated.  “Listen to me, Squirrel.  I. Do. Not. Know. About. Heaven.  And if you don’t mind, don’t talk to me about Bobby d…”  He broke off, horrified to hear the words from his own mouth.  Sam and Dean stared at him.

“You _care_ ,”  Sam said quietly, and that background hostility in him faded as he regarded Crowley incredulously. “You care about Bobby.  I never thought I’d see the day, not after you sidetracked him into Hell.  What the fuck were you doing to him then anyway?”

“Saving him,”  Crowley snapped; pure, unthought fury.  “But he wouldn’t talk to me.  I made sure his soul was safe;  I put guards on him…”

“Who tormented him if not tortured,”  Sam capped.  “He was half nuts when we got to him.  You didn’t know what the fuck you were doing, did you?  You _wanted_ , in whatever sick way you did, and you didn’t care what happened so long as you got that.  What I don’t get is how you’ve moved from that to actually caring about him, human blood or not…”

“Hey,”  said Bobby’s voice from behind them.  Even Crowley, who had been looking in that direction, was surprised.  “You started the argument without me.”  He walked around Crowley and sat in the armchair beside him.  Crowley looked that way in faint surprise, realising that it was because Bobby had behaved so naturally, none of the paranoid caution which hunters, for very good reason, habitually used with demons.  How much had Bobby heard, he wondered.  Humans weren’t particularly acute in any sense, but none of them had been quiet.

Bobby looked much more comfortable now in jeans and the blue plaid shirt, so much so that Crowley could almost feel the room’s collective blood pressure go down.  Then Bobby patted his arm and asked, “You okay?”  Crowley nodded, returning Bobby’s searching look.  _He heard pretty much all of it._

“So,”  the hunter asked slowly, “how did you come to have a witch mother kickin’ around from your mortal days?”

“Good a place as any to start,”  Sam shrugged, exchanging looks with Dean.  “We actually met up with Rowena before Crowley did…”  He took the story to the last encounter they had had with Rowena before demons caught up with her.  By then, Bobby’s mood had sobered.

“Still a damn long time for a witch to be alive,”  he said.  “No matter how much ass she kicks.”

Crowley managed a grin for him.  “Rowena was always a kick ass witch, love,”  he said.  “It’s why she sashayed through 300 years of life on Earth instead of doing the hard yards in Hell as she should have done.  It’s perhaps fitting that I ran into her in one of my prison cells…”

“Maybe we ought to go back to the start before that,”  Sam suggested.  “From when you, uh, died.”

“I was still here, you know,”  Bobby muttered.  “It’s kinda fuzzy, but I know I didn’t go with the Reaper.  I remember more stuff you two did, tryin’ to hunt the Leviathans, that girl Charlie . . . then bein’ grabbed by demons….”

“Cas and I got shoved into Purgatory,”  Dean interrupted, glaring at Crowley, who returned it.  Dean’s gaze moved to his brother.  “And a certain person didn’t look for me for a fucking year.”

“Inside voices, thanks,”  Bobby said, looking from Dean to Sam and wondering whether he couldn’t just do some searching on Google and maybe just asking a few questions once present company calmed down.  “Look, can you just start with the stuff that’s probably not gonna trigger a meltdown for one or more of us?  Like stuff I actually need to know?”

“You sort of need to know about the year,”  Sam said in a low voice.  “I thought it was all over.  I got out of the hunting life, I met this girl, Amelia….”

“And I met this vampire,”  Dean cut in, not seeing Crowley’s smirk.  Sam interrupted back before Dean had got more than a few words in about Benny and their time in Purgatory.  The crossfire of words blurred in Bobby’s mind, mostly from Sam and Dean, with the odd acerbic retort from the King of Hell at his side.

_Finding the Men of Letters bunker. The teen genius prophet, kidnapped by Crowley and then rescued._

“Kevin found this spell for closing the gates of Hell….”

“That’s when we found you there, Bobby.”

“Crowley started killing anyone we ever saved to stop us continuing with the trials.”

“What else did you two goons expect?”

“The demon trials included curing a demon back to human, so we used Crowley…”

“But the trial would have killed Sam…”

_The angels falling from Heaven.  Abaddon’s rule.  Gadreel’s possession of Sam.  The First Blade and the Mark of Cain._

“That creep Metatron.”

“He _killed_ Dean.”

“But Crowley made him into a demon.”

“The Blade did that, Squirrel.  I did not know that would happen.”

“We got Dean back – as Dean.  Tell you more about that later.  Then we tried to get rid of the Mark.”

“Killing Cain…”

“ _Then_ Rowena showed up.  And some stuff happened between Sam and me that – we’ll tell you later, maybe, okay?”

“That was when we got you to be our inside man, well, Cas and Sam did.  I was kinda busy at the time, so I didn’t know Sam enlisted Rowena to help.  She wanted Sam to kill Crowley in return for….”

Bobby cried out for a halt, pressing his hands against his eyes as though afflicted by a migraine.  It wasn’t too far from the truth.  He felt a light touch over his hands and then a coolness and calm filled him.  He dropped his hands and looked at Crowley, who had leaned close to look at him. “You do that?”  A nod.  “Thanks.”  He sighed deeply.  “Back to what I said about not triggerin’ meltdowns, boys.  That includes in me.  All this took what, four years to happen?

“There’s a lot more detail than that,”  Sam informed him, presumably meaning the crossfire of interruptions and half-sentences, Bobby decided.  He filed away what he could for later clarification.  “But it brings us up to a year ago, when we finally got rid of the Mark.  We didn’t know that destroying it was going to free Amara, the Darkness, and let her free on Earth.  Speaking of people keeping secrets and going off on their own…”

“That’s SOP with you boys, isn’t it?”  Crowley snarked.  Bobby didn’t even think; he turned and hit Crowley sharply on the shoulder.

“And you,”  he ordered Sam, doing his best to ignore the stunned look he was getting from the King of Hell.  “This is a briefing.  Don’t start fights till I’m outa here.  Okay.  So Crowley’s mom put a spell on Cas that made him attack Crowley – and I thought my family was screwed up – and you boys were sitting in a bogged car waiting for this huge black cloud of whatever to roll over you.  What next?”

He sat and listened while Sam, Dean and Crowley between them eventually got through the major events of the past year.  The brothers, speaking almost together, reached the point of the farewell in the cemetery, believing Dean was about to sacrifice himself.  Then Dean told the rest of the story alone till he reached the departure of Chuck and Amara.  The younger hunter kept looking at Bobby and then away as though he doubted Bobby would believe him.  When he was done, even Crowley stayed silent.

Bobby swallowed hard, trying desperately to think of something that would help, realising there was nothing.  Nothing of youth in Dean’s eyes any more, though he couldn’t be that much older than Bobby remembered.  Thirty five?  Thirty seven?  All that dying.  Things Bobby himself couldn’t fully comprehend, for his time in Hell had been, by demonic standards, protected.  God in a human avatar…God with a sister.  Did that mean the pagans actually had it right, he wondered. 

“So Lucifer’s on the loose,”  Sam said, taking up the slack where no one else could, as always.  “Amara just….swatted him away.  She didn’t say anything else about him, did she, Dean?”

“No.”  Dean coughed, his throat obviously dry.  He stood up.  “I’m gonna get a beer – anyone else?”  Sam and Bobby put up their hands.  Crowley did not, but Dean looked at him.  “It’s decent beer, Crowley.”  The flicker of surprise at being included was obvious to Bobby, though he thought Dean was still too caught up in his own story to catch it.

“All right, Squirrel, I’ll chance it,”  Crowley said graciously.

“Where’s Castiel got to?”  Bobby asked once Dean was out of the room.  “He get swatted as well?”

“No, but Heaven’s in a pretty messed up state,”  Sam said.  “He’ll have to do a bit of convincing that Lucifer’s not still in his meat suit, but he thinks he’ll be able to manage it.”

“So not only is Lucifer free, but we don’t know what he looks like?”

“Correct.”  

“Sounds like he might be attempting a return coup,”  Crowley suggested lazily, gesturing upwards.  “They should check all their returning citizens for signs of possession.”

“Yeah, thanks, I’m sure Cas has thought of that,”  Sam retorted.  Bobby rolled his eyes and happened to catch Crowley’s attention;  he was doing the same thing.  Choking back laughter, Bobby was relieved to hear Dean’s voice as he returned, handing out bottles.  He looked pleased to see Bobby apparently in a cheerful mood, but his smile faded when he looked at Crowley and he sat without saying anything.

Bobby simply sat and drank the beer; savouring the taste and the coldness striking the back of his throat.  He felt weary, as though he’d been out on his feet all day, yet it was barely noon.  After a moment Dean murmured something to Sam, who nodded and turned to Bobby.  “We’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?”

“Sure,”  the hunter said.  When they were safely gone, he let out a long sigh and took another gulp of the beer.  “Shit.  Things sure didn’t slow down at all, did they?”  He looked around and upwards.  “Feel like I’m buried in a goddamned tomb.”

“Not far off, darling.  I was chained up here for months.”

Bobby grimaced, not sure whether sympathy was the right word for what he felt.  Crowley had pretty much done the same to him, whatever his reasons.  He was kind of glad he couldn’t remember much of the detail.  An arm landed around his shoulders, solid and rather awkward, not that of someone who did this often.

“I know.  You could say I had it coming.”

“Yeah,”  Bobby said, lost.  He thought about commenting re the arm, but honestly, it didn’t bother him.  He shifted position a little and returned the hug, his arm resting on Crowley’s.  “I don’t know what I can do here,”  he said.

“Be yourself.  That’s what they need.”

“You channelling Dr Phil now?”

Bobby chuckled.  “Where did you hear about Dr Phil?”

“I do other things besides make contracts, you know.”  Crowley sounded almost offended.  Then he said, “Actually it was Dean.  We were having a chat about Rowena.”

Bobby’s mind boggled at that.  He wasn’t sure why he did it, but he gave Crowley’s shoulder a comforting rub and heard him sigh and seemingly relax next to Bobby.  Too late, feet thumped on the floor and Bobby heard Dean behind him, sounding as though he didn’t believe what he was seeing.

“You guys planning to move in together or something?”

Bobby huffed in annoyance, patting Crowley’s shoulder before he moved away.  Dean and Sam moved around in front of their armchairs and Bobby tensed.  The words had been joking, the sort of thing any guy might say to some friend who got “too close” to another male.  But this wasn’t just another male and that knowledge had put the Winchesters on alert.  For Crowley’s part, his eyes flashed a dangerous red and he eased forward a little, about to stand.

“Bobby, something isn’t right,”  Sam said, in the sort of quiet tone somebody might use with a dangerous dog.  “He’s done something to you and you can’t see it.  I know you passed the tests but I think we ought to do another check…”

Crowley made a wordless sound of disbelief.  “Fine, boys, I’ll be on my way,”  he drawled.  “For once, I’ve done absolutely nothing except help you two brief Robert on what he’s missed.”  His obvious offence shook Dean’s resolve a bit, Bobby could see it, but not Sam, whose suspicion remained.  “I _was_ even going to offer to assist with tracking down Lucifer, but seems you’ve decided to manage that without me.”

“Hold on,”  Bobby ordered, which got that disbelieving stare turned on him.  He wondered why on earth he wasn’t scared of the demon, when anyone with half a brain would be.  Well, not scared so much as knowing what he could do and that he wouldn’t need much pushing to do it.  But then Crowley shrugged and sat back, waving a hand as though to say;  have at it.  Bobby turned his attention back to Sam and Dean.  “What kinda proof would you accept?” he asked.  “You say God’s your buddy;  why don’t you call him and ask him?  Crowley was here at the same time, Chuck’s gonna know about him.”

“But you were…you know…”  Dean gestured in confused annoyance.  “We know what Crowley’s like, Bobby, but you were –  you’re not freaking gay, are you?”

“Are you seriously askin’ if I came back from Heaven gay, Dean?”

Even Sam couldn’t stop a laugh at that, earning a glare from his brother.  As for Crowley, he seemed to have abandoned all intent to leave and was sitting back, smirking at the entertainment.  But Bobby was quickly losing all wish to laugh as he realised what he was going to have to say.  He wasn’t even all that sure that Crowley would be pleased.

“I’m not gay, Dean.  If I needed to spell it out, consider it freaking well spelt.  But I like Crowley.  Not sure I know why, though I know he talked to me when I was in Heaven.  I reached out – that’s what the angels told me – and that’s why I’m here.  There’s some other reason that I don’t know or can’t remember, but maybe I will soon.”  Bobby looked at Crowley, whose expression was surprised, but not resistant.  “So no dark forces or plans or any shit like that, and I’m sorry you think it’s a thing, boys, but I’m beyond any more explaining right now.  I’m going to go find something to eat and decide what to do next.”

He was putting together a sandwich of bits and pieces he found in one of the fridges when he heard a deliberate throat clearing noise behind him.  Only one person he knew would bother with even fake consideration.  “You want a sandwich?  There’s peanut butter, jelly, a jar of gherkins, I think…”

“Leaving now.”

Bobby chuckled;  he couldn’t help it.  “You can stand watching me eat one, can’t you?  Did the boys take off to discuss our supposed relationship?”

“They’re off in the car somewhere, I really didn’t bother to clarify where,”  Crowley shrugged, leaning on a side counter beside Bobby.  “I consider it an improvement of sorts, that they’ll leave me here while they go out.”  He focused on Bobby’s sandwich for a moment, then winced delicately and averted his eyes.  “So, you like me, do you, darling?”

“Don’t push it,”  Bobby warned.  “And don’t try the puppy dog look.  Sam can pull it off, but you just look like you’ve got stomach troubles.”  He stood the reproachful silence until he sat down at the table with his lunch and then sighed.  “Sure I like you.  I must have lost my mind.  I don’t know how Sam and Dean deal with livin’ underground like this, it’s creepy.  But I don’t even exist in the world anymore, I go somewhere and say I’m Bobby Singer and maybe they run my prints and they’ll say; hey, that guy died years ago, what are you tryin’ to pull?  Even if I go back to helpin’ hunters, I’d have to use another name and how can I do that when I’ve missed so much time?  If I think about that stuff, I start to go crazy, but I’ve got nothin’ to do now but read the books here, listen to Sam and Dean talk about what they’ve gone through…and bend your ear.”

Crowley settled into a seat beside him while Bobby talked.  The hunter stopped at last, sighed and returned his attention to food.  “So, love, you have a police record, do you?”  Crowley murmured at last.

“I guess so.  I’ve been chucked into the drunk tank once or twice, maybe a few other….minor things.”  He bumped Crowley’s shoulder companionably.  “Maybe you and me could join forces to work out where Lucifer’s got to, since the boys don’t trust me and you…”

“They think I’ve bewitched you, or some such,”  Crowley agreed, thinking it over.  “Or that despite their tests, you’re not actually you.”

“I think they know I am, or they wouldn’t have left me here with you,”  Bobby pointed out.  He frowned.  “Though they’re not exactly thinkin’ clearly about the whole thing.  I think Dean at least trusts you but he don’t trust himself for doin’ it.  I’m not sure about Sam.  I need to get out of here, clear my head up, but my house is gone.”

“There’s more than one house in the world, Robert,”  Crowley said, and the gentleness in his tone made Bobby look at him in surprise.

“Yeah, I know, but I lived most of my adult life in that house, first with my wife and then….kept livin’ there.  Later on, John Winchester would drop his boys off when he decided to go harin’ off somewhere.  In Heaven, it was still my house.  I don’t suppose you could kinda bring it back, could you?”  The plaintiveness in his question made Crowley’s heart ache, or where it would have been had he possessed one, he reminded himself.  Bobby was so fiercely independent.  Even when making his deal, he had asked nothing for himself.

“Sorry, love, not in the demonic mandate.”  He was a destroyer; he could take lives and make contracts, burn and break and cause to bleed, but to restore a thing out of ashes and fragments was beyond him.  He wanted to offer to take Bobby to one of the lairs he still had in the world, to give him back the identity and presence which were his in life, but he knew better than that now.  Bobby would not accept anything from him, not even…

“Hey, it’s okay,”  Bobby interrupted his thoughts, nudging him again.  “I was thinkin’, there might be a place, if it’s still there.  Rufus had this cabin, probably a few of ‘em, the paranoid bastard, and even if it needed a bit of rebuilding, that would be fine.  I could get the boys to take me out there, maybe take along some of these books to try and find something useful.  I got to try, Crowley.”

“I know.”  So he would lose Bobby to this need to be useful, to be part of tracking and binding the Morning Star.  Poetic name for such an unmitigated bastard, the King of Hell thought without irony.  He didn’t need to be a “good guy” to know a deeper dyed villain when he saw one, or threw one in a cage which was supposed to hold him for eternity.  He missed Bobby’s next comment and glanced his way with almost human confusion.  “What did you say, Robert?”

“I asked if you’d, uh, come with me to the cabin.  A short visit, I guess, since you’ve got Hell to mind. ”

“I don’t know if I’ve got Hell, darling.  Lucifer did a lot of damage to my support base, and I need some of them to control the rest.  I had demons walk out of a meeting with me, you know that?  They _laughed_ at me because of what Luci did when he was in Castiel’s body, making me….lick the floor.”

“Sorry, sorry,”  Bobby said, awkwardly comforting.  “But when you’ve got time, you will, right?  I don’t want to be doin’ that summoning shit any more, and you’re gonna need a contact here to let you know what the boys find out.”

Crowley studied the hunter’s face, strong and determined, thinning gingery hair showing at the edges of the ball cap.  He had gone through hell on earth, had Bobby Singer, and hell in truth, but that strength of spirit had never wavered.  It was that which he loved – the King of Hell at last faced the word in his own mind – as much or more than the physical body the hunter inhabited.  It was said that demons could not love, but Crowley knew that wasn’t true, even if for them that love was twisted, tainted with possessiveness and cruelty. 

If the demon trials at Sam Winchester’s hands had done nothing else, they had returned to him that measure of humanity which remembered love, remembered that he did not deserve it.  Then there had been Rowena, who had pretended love to gain influence in Crowley’s realm.  She had kissed his forehead.  He had felt the kiss like a burning thing, a hope that finally the first one to abandon him would be the first to return.

“Where is this cabin?” he asked.  “Do you know its precise location?”

“I’ve been there,”  Bobby confirmed.  “Few years before I – you know – but I remember the place pretty well.  A few hours out from Sioux Falls in South Dakota, near some little town, but not too near.  Rufus had the taxes paid on the place for years by some accountancy firm, just in case he needed to bug out, but I don’t know if they’ve run out now or not.”

“Well, love, if you’re able to hold the location in your mind…”  Crowley stood and made a show of dusting his hands on his coat, “then I can be of service.”

“Hey, wait, do you mean…”  Bobby began as Crowley touched his arm.  “….to actually _go_ there,”  he finished, and looked around at log walls and afternoon light filtering through dirty windows into the dusty interior of what looked like a long abandoned dwelling.  The chill of the deep woods struck through his clothing and Bobby shivered.  When he saw it, Crowley turned to a fireplace opposite and with a theatrical gesture set the neatly stacked logs ablaze.

“Welcome home, darling,”  he announced.


	6. Chapter 6

Bobby felt laughter welling up in him, and maybe the first glimmer of hope and purpose.  He turned around, seeing a dozen or more things he would need to get doing, to turn the place into somewhere habitable.  Supplies…Rufus would have left some long term stuff, but not all of it would still be usable.  Books; he needed to persuade Sam and Dean to trust him with some of that library.  A whole pile of stuff to do. 

He focused on the stocky demon standing proudly with hand still outstretched towards the hearth fire.  The firelight revealed the King’s broad, bearded face clearly, his eyes gleaming with pride in his own powers, that cheeky, conniving grin.  Bobby covered the steps to him in a moment, grasped his shoulders and pulled him into a sudden hug, then moved back and planted an awkward kiss on Crowley’s cheek.  “Had to kiss you for the deal, but this one’s thanks,”  he muttered.  “Got to ask you to take us back to the bunker now so I can figure out how to explain best to the boys.  Pick some books for us to borrow and see if I can scrounge a laptop.”

They were back in the bunker’s kitchen before he finished his last sentence.  “Hey, that fire…”  Bobby blurted.

“I saw to it, love.  And now, I’ll take my leave.  Best I’m not here when you announce your intention, don’t you think?  I’ll meet you at the cabin in a few days, your time.”

Bobby nodded, agreeing with him, and Crowley blinked out, to reappear in Hell with discipline on his mind, and the memory of Bobby’s kiss a fire-warmth on his face.

*

 “Bobby, you can’t do that,”  Dean protested the moment Bobby finished speaking.  “You just got back…”

“You make it sound like I was off on holiday,”  the older hunter growled.  “I figure I can do it just fine.  Lived on my own for long enough, you know.  It’s not like you boys or anyone else ever checked for life signs;  you only called when you wanted to know something, or wanted to stash someone in my house or whatever the hell it was.  If I stay off the grid, it’s a sight easier than tryin’ to convince the world I ain’t dead.  Best thing I can do is get away someplace I can really get my mind workin’ on Lucifer and finding him.  That’s one reason I want the books.  No way you boys can get through them in any reasonable time, even if Dean’s graduated from picture books since Dick Roman killed me.”

Dean opened his mouth again and Sam elbowed him, hard.  They were in the kitchen having supper, when Bobby had decided it was as good a time as any to drop his bombshell.  “So where does Crowley figure in all this?”  Sam asked, over Dean’s “ouch” noises. 

“He said something about sorting out his demons back in Hell,”  Bobby said drily.  “Why?  You think he ought to figure, or you just gonna call him when you need demonic backup?”

“You could stay off the grid right here,”  Sam said, obviously worried.  “We weren’t going to abandon you, not after you’ve done so much for us.”

“Well, thanks, Sam, I’m glad someone noticed.  But being down here is making me claustrophobic.  I’ve got to be doing something for myself and setting up a home base will help.  So, about those books…”

Dean and Sam looked at one another, shrugging.

“I’ll just go and pick some of ‘em out, will I?”

Bobby was putting the clothes Sam had got for him into a borrowed duffel bag on his bed when Sam himself knocked lightly on the door.  Upon being invited in, Sam walked over and watched his foster-father for a moment.  “I know it’s kind of role reversal, but you’re worrying us, Bobby.  You won’t know anyone there for backup and it’s a day’s drive to get there, so we can’t bail you out real fast.  And we need your help.”

“That’s why I asked you for that computer,”  Bobby agreed.  “I’m not aiming to cut myself off from all contact.”

“Crowley’s going to join you there, isn’t he?”

Bobby sighed deeply.  “There’s too many secrets in this family and I ain’t aiming to add to ‘em.  So yeah, he’s coming back when he sorts out whatever shit’s bothering him in Hell.  I didn’t ask for any details because I honestly don’t want to know and he’d probably tell me.”

“He’s got a fixation on you, Bobby.”

“Aw, did he pass you a note in class?”  After a moment of Sam disapproval, Bobby relented.  He zipped up the bag and turned to look at the younger man.  Look up, of course, since Sam was several inches taller than him and most other folks as well.  “You actually cut some of your hair, son.  Amazing.  Look, Sam, Crowley doesn’t worry me, not about that.  I would’ve thought the King of Hell thing would worry you a bit more than him havin’, ahem, inappropriate feelings for me.  He’s got centuries of knowledge under his belt and Lucifer has been his prisoner, don’t forget.  If I’ve got any purpose in coming back besides pissing off a bunch of angels, I think it’s working with him on this.  If you want to talk to me or you want my advice or whatever, you can get in touch.  Any time.”

“Thanks, Bobby.  We’re both going to drive you out there, by the way.  You do remember where it is?”

“Uh.”  Bobby recollected he hadn’t actually mentioned Crowley’s zapping him to the spot.  “No problem, but take a directory just in case.”

*

“We’re freaking lost,”  Dean groaned, leaning his head against Baby’s steering wheel.  “Out in the freaking woods with no motels or diners or bars…”

“All the delights of civilisation,”  Bobby groused back at him.  He had forgotten some of the crucial details of what roads to take, somewhere between the bunker and the cabin, which was why Sam was now flipping the pages of the road directory, having failed to get reception for his phone.  Not really a surprise, Bobby decided, looking about from the back seat of the Impala.  Dean had started saying how were they going to stay in contact with him if he couldn’t get online or use his phone?  Bobby hadn’t wanted to explain why he wasn’t worried about that.  Crowley had a way of achieving things such as impossible wifi access.

“You find it yet, Sam?”  Dean asked.

“Hang on, okay, some of these roads aren’t marked on the map, you know, and when they are they don’t have names.”

“Drive on one mile and take the first turn on the left.”

“Fucking shit, Crowley!”  Dean screamed, belting his head on the ceiling.  Sam produced his gun and twisted in his seat, fortunately hearing Dean before he pulled the trigger.  He wasn’t worried about shooting Crowley, but what Dean would do if he put a bullet hole in Baby, well, he didn’t want to think about how much that would hurt. 

Bobby swore as well, belting his head into the window.  Crowley sat there next to him, smirking and elegant in his suit, which had a red carnation in a buttonhole, with a matching red tie.

“You bastard,”  Bobby spluttered after a moment.  “You could, you know, phone and say you were coming.”

“What fun would that be?”  Crowley asked airily.  “Dean?  Did you hear my directions or shall I repeat?”

“I’ll give you some directions in a minute,”  Dean retorted, but he started the engine and drove on.

They were almost on the cabin before they saw it, and by then it was nearly nightfall.  Bobby was relieved to see that the place looked intact and didn’t appear to be boarded up or have any notices indicating it was anyone else’s property.  He hadn’t had a chance to investigate county records yet, but Sam had promised to take care of that.  Bobby climbed creakily out of the car as soon as it stopped and went to get his gear out of the trunk.  Sam followed him.

“We should stay here tonight,”  he said.  “I don’t want to just leave you till we’ve had a proper check of the area.”

“You mean you don’t want to leave me with Crowley,”  Bobby returned, placing his duffel on the ground and reaching for the first box of books.

“We’re not doing that, you bet.”  Dean now, book-ending Bobby.

“I have a report from a crossroads demon about Lucifer.”

They turned about to confront the dapper demon who smirked at both of them.  Crowley looked way out of place in this setting, Bobby decided, and if he didn’t wipe that grin off, somebody was going to pepper him with rock salt.

“What?”  Sam demanded.

“I think we should get Bobby’s things inside and then sit down for a drink,” the demon said generally. “Want me to carry something, darling?”

Bobby rolled his eyes, reminding himself yet again that he’d better stop doing that around Crowley because it was starting to hurt, and shoved the box of books at him.  “Hold that.  And shut up, if you can, before Sam or Dean loses the plot.  I got no idea where the key is so I might have to bust the door…”  He trailed off as said door swung open in obedient response to Crowley’s wave.  “Thanks.  You first.”

Crowley, still smirking, obeyed.  Sam looked at him thoughtfully and then followed the demon and Bobby inside.  The place was tidier than expected, though dusty, and the sheets on the bed would have to be thrown out; some creature appeared to have made a nest in them.  No electricity, but Bobby said there was a generator somewhere that he’d have a look at in the morning.  Meanwhile….Sam was looking for a battery lantern when Crowley snapped his fingers and produced a light which hung suspended from nothing near the ceiling.

The log cabin was basically a single room, with kitchen facilities at one end and beyond that a door leading to the bathroom and laundry area.  A couple of broken down looking armchairs sat next to the hearth – Bobby hoped nobody looked too closely at the fresh ashes – and the bed not too far beyond them, to get the maximum benefit of the heat.  They deposited the books on the wooden table that stood against one of the walls and Dean went back out for the weapons bag.

“I gotta go,”  Bobby mumbled suddenly and made for the bathroom.  Sam and Crowley stared at each other from across the room.  Hunter and demon fought a brief battle of wills and finally Crowley sighed.

“I’m not going to hurt him, Sam.”

“I’m not reassured that you know how not to hurt, Crowley.”

“Hm.  You may have a point, Moose,”  Crowley said as though it pained him to admit it.  “Let’s say I will try not to, with all my will.”

“Why?”

Crowley hesitated.  Sam was no challenge to him, of course; his power was raw and brash and so very young.  But if he, Crowley, did not give a reply Sam accepted, that fierce protectiveness would flare into overdrive.  There was a good chance that the brothers wouldn’t take a dismissal from Bobby, and against them united, the old hunter might well find himself baulked.  That meant Crowley couldn’t be with him and that was suddenly, intensely hurtful.

But Sam wouldn’t believe the truth.

Crowley didn’t realise that his struggle was plain to Sam.  With some amazement, the younger Winchester read the agonised struggle on the demon’s face, the look of someone wanting very much to convince him, yet fighting to say the words.  None of Crowley’s usual blithe snark or his darker side, when Hell would flare in his eyes and he, Sam, would remember what kind of creature lurked beneath that surface of charm and poise.  “When Bobby was shot…”  Crowley said, his voice a low rasp.  He had no wish for Bobby to overhear this right now.  “One of my demons reported to me later, since I wasn’t on the spot…”

“Busy torturing Meg, weren’t you?”

It was a mark of Crowley’s agitation that he didn’t snap back at Sam.  Instead he hesitated again and then continued.  “I felt as though my heart was ripped out.”

_Something you probably know from personal experience, only then it wasn’t your heart._

“I can’t give you any suitable words,”  Crowley said wearily.  “You won’t believe them;  I hardly believe them myself.  If I ever say them to Bobby, he’ll laugh if I’m lucky and fry me with salt if I’m not.”

“What’s unsuitable then?”  Sam asked.

“I love him,”  Crowley said in a fierce whisper.   He almost expected Sam to start shouting – Dean would have – or even shooting, but the young hunter only kept watching him steadily for a moment.

“I want you to promise me something, if Dean and I are going to leave you here with Bobby…”

A few moments later,  Dean was there, dumping the weapons bag on the table in a clatter of metal.  “Where’d Bobby go?”

“To take a leak.  You mind?”  And Bobby was back as well, glaring at Dean, with a further silent warning to Sam not to comment further.  “By the way, can somebody dig out that toilet paper?  I got no idea where it is but one of you stowed it somewhere safe.  And then for god’s sake grab that probably-stone-cold-by-now Chinese food off the back seat.  If you’re gonna hang around, you can be useful.”

With this, he stomped over to the nearer of the two armchairs, prodded its seat cautiously and sat with a relieved sigh.  “Honestly, sometimes they act like no one ever housetrained ‘em and I can promise you, somebody did.”

Crowley’s chuckle was cautious and he moved around to where Bobby could see him, though he didn’t sit.  He had a feeling that doing that while Sam and Dean were moving around, as though he expected room service, wouldn’t be treated kindly.  Or at all.  “Do you have a job for me then, darling?”

“Please cut that out, at least while the boys can hear you?”  Bobby requested, wincing.  “You could start the fire.”

“Done,”  Crowley said, as the crackling flames rose in response to his lazy wave.  He lifted a few more of the logs by his will and directed them into the fireplace.

“You really got a lead on Lucifer?”

“Given that demons are basically unreliable, I can’t swear to it, but they know the penalty for me finding out they’ve lied to me.”

Dean stalked in, a roll of toilet paper in his hand.  “Sam found it on the back seat,”  he said, as his brother followed him with the bags of takeaway. “Hidden under somebody’s jacket.  Crowley, can you please give with the information already?”

The demon sighed theatrically but at a look from Bobby, he said, “I make my Crossroads demons report to me regularly regarding what they do up here, or I did before Lucifer busted out.   Some of the lower level ones are still loyal to me.   And no, I’m not telling you where the new rendezvous is.  Anyhow, this one reported meeting with another demon where no one was supposed to be.  Claims it wasn’t anyone from Crossroads.  This unknown triggered a nasty bar room brawl – has anyone seen a nice one? – that left one of the townspeople in a coma.”

“Where?”  Dean demanded.

“Winterridge.”  When everyone continued to look at him confusedly, Crowley looked impatient and turned to Bobby.  “Ten miles or so away, love, or don’t you know your new neighbourhood at all?  Your new hometown?”

Not long after that bombshell had been dropped, Sam and Dean announced they were heading into town.  They had discussed whether to spend the night, but in the end the expected comforts of a motel in the nearby town won over camping out on a plank floor in the cabin.  They were probably also going to do a crawl of the little town’s three or four bars, but Bobby didn’t think they would learn much.  Winterridge didn’t seem to care for strangers.

Crowley was off testing out the hot water tank, taking the first shower anybody had tried in the cabin’s bathroom.  It made Bobby grin, for surely the demon didn’t need to bother with cumbersome human things like showers.  _Is he actually tryin’ to impress me with that?_   Crowley had taken a bundle of clean clothes with him that didn’t look like his usual suit, piquing Bobby’s curiosity. 

The door opened and Bobby looked up automatically, then blinked in surprise.  Crowley had come in, his hair washed and still damp, his suit under his arm.

He was wearing jeans.

And a t-shirt.

The shirt and jeans were black, meaning the skies hadn’t exactly fallen, but still, Crowley-casual was a new thing.  And on his arms, Bobby could now see the bright tracings of tattoos, black and red and green.  He stared at the demon, unable to help it.

“See something you like, darling?”

“See somethin’ I sure didn’t expect to,”  Bobby growled back at him, but not seriously meaning the growl.  “When did you get tattoos?”

“They aren’t mine,”  Crowley said, which gave Bobby a good reality shake.  His meatsuit had gotten them, he meant, back in the days before a demon saw him and decided to take him.  “But I admit, they were a selling point.”

He threw the bundle of black cloth under his arm into the air and snapped his fingers, whereupon the suit, shirt and tie vanished.  Bobby huffed at the sight.  “You want to play human, you could’ve just hung that up in a cupboard, you know, right over there.”  Crowley’s face went blank at that and Bobby wanted to kick himself.  Crowley was trying.  If he got things wrong, well, what else was to be expected?  “Sorry,”  he said awkwardly, finishing with the bed making, during which time Crowley had strolled over to the fire and seemed very interested in it.  “So what are the tattoos of?”

“Want to see?”  Crowley pulled the t-shirt off and Bobby gawked, because suddenly he was seeing Crowley half naked in the light of the fire and the single light bulb he’d turned on, in the kitchen area.  The demon spread his arms and showed off three bright, winding dragons, coiling over his arms and chest.  Really good art, Bobby admitted; he wasn’t into tatts himself but he could appreciate quality work.  He cleared his throat awkwardly, realising he’d drifted closer and was now almost within arm’s reach of said artwork, which was of course, on Crowley’s body.

He expected some smirky remark, but Crowley just lowered his arms and stood looking at him, not moving to put the shirt back on.  _Right,_ thought Bobby, _I think this just got real._   _I did think he might behave for a few days, at least._

“I made a deal with Sam,”  Crowley said.

“Well, ok, that’s not what I thought you were gonna say,”  Bobby allowed cautiously.  “You don’t mean an actual soul-sellin’ thing, do you…?”

“No,” the demon said at once and Bobby breathed out in relief.  Crowley began putting the t-shirt back on, perhaps for something to do.  His hair was ruffled and spiky, making Bobby grin.  Crowley’s answering grin was a bit uneasy.  “Want to sit down first, Robert?”

“Jesus.  I’m getting us a bottle, then I’ll sit down.”

Crowley was seated by the time he got back, whisky bottle and two glasses in his hand.  Bobby occupied himself with the important business of pouring booze before he sat back and showed Crowley an expectant look.  “Okay, shoot.”

Crowley gave him his best long suffering look and took a drink.  “I’m to tell you how I feel and then abide by your decision,”  he announced.

“Sam and you talked about _feelings_?”

“You’re not making this any easier, Robert.”

“Sorry, princess, but you’re beatin’ about the forest, never mind a bush.”

“I don’t want you to throw me out, Robert!”

“C’mon, out with it.”

“I’m in love with you.”

Hearing it confirmed was more of a shock than he’d thought.  Bobby took a drink of whisky and promptly choked on it.

“That bad, hm?”

“No, you idjit.”  When he stopped coughing, Bobby studied Crowley’s face, not too comfortably, since the demon was eyeing him intently.  “Never expected you to stop messin’ with me and get serious,”  he murmured.  “Look, Crowley, I don’t know what to say.  I never had but one person crush on me, and that was high school.  Karen and I got married not long after graduation.  Most of the time I just don’t even think about it, you know?  Got my research and hunters to help and cars and…”  He shrugged helplessly.  “I never even figured out dating.  Karen just saw and decided she wanted, for some reason I never understood, and I found myself in front of a judge sayin’ “I do”.   I mean, Dean, he walks into a place and he just collects phone numbers, girls just throw themselves at him.  Sam’s not quite such a walkin’ chick magnet, but he does all right, when he’s not busy readin’ or some such.  I like you more’n I should, always did, but it’s not like a demon and a hunter together is such a normal thing.  Sam and Ruby….”

“Bobby, love, what you haven’t mentioned is the fact that we’re men and I know humans are a bit limited in their ideas of who should do what with who,”  Crowley said.

“Well, yeah, I know some folks have a problem,”  Bobby replied, confused.  “It don’t bother me.”  He looked at Crowley a bit cautiously, found the same look returned to him.  Found the idea of trying this out more than a little interesting, so long as Crowley wasn’t stringing him along for his amusement or some such.  But when the King of Hell continued to look at him and the hammer didn’t fall, he cleared his throat and continued.  “You _aren’t_ messing with me, are you, Crowley?”

“Fair enough,”  Crowley said, with a touch of bitterness.  “I deserve that in spades, love.  Sam already threatened me with dire consequences if I was.”

“And that bothers you?”

“There aren’t too many people alive or dead who can threaten me,”  Crowley whispered.  “Lucifer, God, Amara -  curse her – and then the Winchesters.  Oh, and their angel, I suppose, on his good days.  I don’t know why your boys matter to me but they do.  I’ve let them have too much power and if I could, I’d fix it.”

“Would you fix carin’ about me if you could?”

“Life would be a lot simpler, Robert, as it was before the Moose tried to cure me and got halfway when his interfering brother showed up to save his life,”  Crowley retorted.  He had leaned forward in his emphasis, not noticing, until Bobby suddenly extended a hand to touch the side of Crowley’s face.

“Simple isn’t always best,”  the hunter said quietly, as the demon stared at him, not moving.  Bobby leaned forward quietly to brush his lips against Crowley’s.  “You damn idjit, I kissed you earlier, didn’t I?   I don’t just kiss people unless it means somethin’ to me.”

This time, the kiss was longer.  When it was over, Bobby needing to breathe even if Crowley didn’t, Crowley made a anguished little sound in his throat and lunged at Bobby, pressing himself against the hunter’s chest.  Bobby’s arms reached around him to hold him tightly, one of his hands clumsily stroking Crowley’s hair.  “It’s all right, Crowley, I got you now.”

It felt like a long time later that the wind rose, rattling around the cabin and causing trees to strike against the roof.  Crowley raised his head from Bobby’s chest to listen to it and the hunter listened as well.  “That reminds me, better go ward this place before anythin’ we don’t want tries to get inside.”

Crowley laughed softly.  “Innuendo as expected, love.”

Bobby smacked him lightly on the head. 

The wind was higher by the time he finished the warding, enough to make him hope the place was solid, because he hadn’t yet taken a proper look around it.  He was beginning to feel a little awkward again by the time he banked the fire and turned out the main light.  Crowley was sitting on the bed finishing his Scotch, now wearing only a pair of boxers that looked suspiciously like silk.

“This is kind of roughing it for you, isn’t it?”  Bobby mumbled as he undressed.  “Don’t you go more for the penthouse or mansion kinda setup?  That deserted asylum the boys talked about was because you were keepin’ quiet, wasn’t it?”

“Yes and yes,”  the demon agreed, “but an interlude won’t hurt me any.  I’m sure I can contribute some improvements to the décor.”

“I’m an interlude, am I?”  Bobby muttered as he got into bed with a tired sigh.  He wasn’t sure what he expected; he didn’t feel that much like starting straightaway and remarks like that didn’t encourage thoughts of a night of passion.  Crowley burrowed under the covers next to him and settled himself against Bobby, an arm over his chest.

“An interlude for me could be twenty or thirty human years,”  Crowley said. 

“Fair enough,”  Bobby mumbled.  “Um, I’m pretty tired, do you mind if we just…”

Crowley laughed quietly and stroked a hand along Bobby’s side.  “It’s all right, love.  Plenty of time.”

At that, Bobby felt a stab of unease, it felt like asking for grief to him.  He was in uncharted realms, he reminded himself, the only human soul ever rejected from Heaven after it had been admitted, and he was sharing a bed with the being who had caused that to happen.  He had no idea what he should do next, so he reached out and wrapped his arms around Crowley’s body and held him close, not sure whether he was seeking to comfort or receive comfort.  It did occur to him, as he felt himself relax into sleep, that perhaps the King of Hell did not know either.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes some more plot. Sort of. This part has been quite hard to write and I don't have a beta. Also, Sam and Dean are not particularly sympathetic characters here, because I think they would hate the idea of Bobby being with Crowley on so many levels. They love Bobby, but the King of Hell, not so much....

 

Bobby woke at some unknown point in the night; taking a moment to remember where he was and even when he was, then noting that there seemed to be a warm body next to him that definitely wasn’t his wife.  The fire had died down and the cabin felt cold when he moved and the covers shifted off his shoulder.  His mind was still confused in time and he reached out blindly, gripping the shoulder next to him.

“Robert, love, are you all right?”

That voice brought it all back, of course, and he let his breath out, trying to calm down.  He didn’t try to look around or switch the lamp on, just lay still for a moment while Crowley turned, rolling closer, but carefully not touching him.  “I was…I got shot,”  he said.  There was something else, some stretch of time that was blurring as he tried to focus upon it.

“I hope you can wake up a bit more than that, or I’ve got some explaining to do,” that familiar voice rasped sleepily nearby.  Crowley was a black outline, raising himself on an elbow.

“Yeah….sorry.  I couldn’t think…”

“If you always woke like this, I’d be wondering how a hunter made it to your current age, so I’m assuming this has something to do with your sojourn in Heaven.  But you seemed alert enough when Dean disturbed us in the bunker.”

“God, don’t remind me.  I couldn’t relax in that place.  Here, just you and me, seems different.”

 “True enough, love,”  Crowley said.  “And there’s nothing here but us.”  He cautiously reached out a hand and found Bobby’s hand in the dark, grasping it.  Bobby returned the grip hard, enough to hurt had Crowley still been human.

“Come here,”  he said, his voice still low as though there was someone or something to hear them.  “ _Come here._ ”  They were almost in contact as it was, but in answer, Crowley moved against him, got an arm over Bobby and held him.  The heat of Bobby’s almost naked body, the touch of his skin against Crowley’s, was having the expected result, and Crowley rather hoped Bobby would remember that sainthood was hardly in the job description of demonic monarch.

“Crowley, I don’t know if I’m real,”  Bobby’s voice husked against his face.  “Any of this; you, the cabin, comin’ back…I got to know.”  He loosened his hand from Crowley’s grip and touched his stomach, hand splayed out against him.  Stroked downward.  Crowley’s gasp wasn’t entirely voluntary.  “Heaven….I’m forgettin’ Heaven.  When I woke up I only remembered being in the hospital with a head injury, but it killed me.  The boys burned my body, so how am I here?  I don’t know.  I only know Heaven doesn’t do real.  It plays with your head, maybe outa kindness, I don’t know.  Please.  I haven’t much of an idea about this and that’s not gonna be much fun for you, but I have to know this is real.”

“Don’t worry about me, Robert,”  Crowley said softly, his other hand moving to stroke Bobby’s face.  “You’re doing just fine. “

*

The next time Bobby woke, it was light outside.  Overcast, and the windows needed about ten years of crap cleaned off them, but light got through nevertheless.  He dimly took stock of the fact that he wasn’t wearing his boxers any more, in fact could see them lying on the floor, and that Crowley was sprawled against him and half on him, apparently deeply asleep.  He too, Bobby noted, wasn’t wearing his boxers, or anything else.

 _Oh.  Right_.

Bobby grasped Crowley’s shoulder and shook him determinedly.  “Hey.  King of Hell.  Get off me, I want to go take a shower.”

Crowley wouldn’t stop grinning.  Bobby couldn’t give him grief for it because he was pretty sure he was doing the same thing.  He got a quick breakfast of oatmeal and a large mug of coffee and once that was downed, told Crowley he was going to spend the morning cleaning up the place and seeing what repairs needed to be done.  “It’s gonna be a bit boring for ya,”  he said a bit hesitantly, putting his arm around Crowley’s shoulders as they sat together.

The look he got in return was pure disbelief, then a return of that wicked grin.  “Then I’ll have to try to make it more interesting, won’t I, Robert?”

“I just thought if you had stuff you needed to do, now would be a good time.  We’re not meetin’ up with Sam and Dean until twelve.”

The demon’s smile faded and he looked suddenly quite grim, a dark, remembering sort of expression in his eyes.  “Stuff to do,”  he echoed softly.  “Meaning the duties of a king of the infernal realm, hm, love?  A king whose main prisoner escaped and is now probably plotting havoc beyond mortal comprehension?  That sort of ‘stuff’?  I hoped to forget, just for a little time, though it is truer for a demon than for any human, you can’t go back.  You can never go home.”

Bobby felt his whisper like an arctic chill and he tightened his arm around Crowley.  “Hey there.  I never meant for any of that.  I don’t exactly belong here any more either, you know, that’s why I’m out here, to try and get my head together and decide what I can do.  And I couldn’t do it without you.”  He fought his own embarrassment to meet Crowley’s eyes.  “Last night…that was really good, even if I did start off by freakin’ out about things.”  He kissed Crowley gently.   “Anyway, you went back to, you know, Hell, so didn’t you…sort them out?”

“Not exactly.”  Crowley’s voice was rough, but ghostly as well, so low that Bobby only heard him because they were so close.  “I can travel through the realms, yes, and I know ways to access Hell which most don’t have the power to do.  But I didn’t exactly walk straight in there, sit on the throne and say, ‘Now, you mooks, what was all that about chaining me up in a dog kennel?’  It was more a case of moving about, sounding out a few demons when I caught them alone, and none of what they told me was very encouraging.”

“So stay here,”  Bobby told him.  “Don’t worry about where you belong or don’t belong.  We will do what we can.”

“What, help me to recover Hell?  Your boys won’t be so keen on that…”

“Havin’ you in charge suits ‘em better than anyone else we know who’s taken the job,”  Bobby told him bluntly.  “For now you’re here with me and anyone says you don’t belong can damn well deal with me, Crowley.”

A strange warmth filled his mind, sitting here in this rough, undeniably primitive place, with Bobby Singer’s arm around him, neither one where he was technically supposed to be. 

“And me, Robert.  So, what are we doing before we meet the boys?”

“We-ell, you ready for an exciting mornin’ of washing windows?”

“Darling, you know I could just click my fingers and bam, spring cleaning,”  Crowley said.

Bobby regarded him for a moment and asked, “How do you get your powers?  I mean, all magic has a cost, that’s how your Deal Magic works, doesn’t it?  But when you do something, teleport yourself or okay, remove all the grime off a window, how do you pay for that?  It varies depending on the demon, so…?”

Crowley grimaced.  “I did say I wanted to get away from all that, but fair enough, I brought it up.  So.”  He tugged at Bobby’s arm to lead him outside the cabin.  “My power comes from taken souls.  The demon who makes the deal keeps a percentage of the energy, you could say, when that soul is harvested and, ah, value added in Hell.”

“Tortured,”  Bobby said flatly. “You get your power from torture.”

“Well, some,”  Crowley agreed.  “When Crossroads makes a sale, a deposit goes to the dealer and a percentage always goes to the King.  Then when reaping takes place, a further automatic percentage goes to both.  If that soul is deemed worthy of becoming a demon, then a percentage of that demon’s energy will be passed on, energies we obtain from a variety of sources.  Demons usually aren’t tortured unless they get caught at something.”

Bobby was starting to get a headache.  “So those demons support you?”

“Oh no, not necessarily.  They don’t have a say in the matter.  And then there’s the kingship, which is a different thing again.  As King of Hell, I reap a percentage of all souls in Hell.”  He smiled briefly.  “I’ve noticed a slight weakening, nothing that drastically changes things, but it suggests that the balance is tipping away from me.  When Lucifer deposed me, I lost a lot of power, and when I got away from him, I didn’t get my kingship back.  Hell is a rather risky place for me right now, so I haven’t been able to solidify my position.”

“You’re kinda going off the point, Crowley.  I don’t want you using Hell’s power to clean my freaking windows.  If you want to help, great, I could use it, but do it with elbow grease.”

Crowley didn’t answer that and Bobby got to work, collecting a bucket of water and cloths from a very dusty cupboard.  The day was chill, definite tinges of winter still in the air, and he thought of what Sam and Dean had told him of the sun dying.  Only for a short time, it must have been, but maybe it had skewed the seasons.  Some things best not to think about, Bobby told himself;  they could break your mind.  His own experiences among them.

He had clung to Crowley last night as though he was the last hope in the goddamned world.  Bobby felt his body reacting even now to those thoughts, the delicious intimacy Crowley had shown him, and he realised he was looking forward to that again tonight, had no intention of giving it up. 

Crowley stuck with his job as assistant, which surprised Bobby a bit.  From windows, they moved on to making sure the roof was in good condition.  Crowley asked why bother, but stopped when Bobby told him what a load of snow could do to a shaky roof.  [Crowley held the ladder and shouted advice up to the hunter, who ignored it].  After that it was time to head to town, so the demon insisted they go clean up, after which he changed back into his suit despite Bobby trying to persuade him to dress down in the interests of at least trying to look like they wanted to belong.

In the cab of the truck, the demon said abruptly, “I don’t, you know.”

“Huh?”

“Belong.  Anywhere on the surface of this planet at all.”

Bobby paused, hands on the steering wheel, to look at him with mingled exasperation and affection.

“And I’m sure the rule is absolutely no PDA, either in front of your boys or the thousand or so rustic folk who call this hamlet home, so this will be a long day.”

Bobby sighed uncomfortably.  “It’s probably not a great idea first off….”  Crowley blinked at him, perhaps trying for a look of innocence.  “You’re windin’ me up, aren’t you?”

“I would never…!”

“Thought so.”

*

Seeing Winterridge in daylight didn’t bring back any memories.  Bobby thought he and Rufus had driven through it at least once, but that was at night and so had his arrival here with Sam and Dean.  By daylight the place looked mostly deserted; its thousand-odd residents doing whatever they did out of sight.  It mostly served as a hub for the farmers in the area, containing feed stores, several bars, the obligatory shops, motels for travellers and a community centre. 

“No churches,”  Crowley said, as the truck pulled into the car park of the motel where Sam and Dean were staying.

“What?  How do you know?”  Crowley favoured him with a look of what Bobby guessed was meant to be supreme patience.  “You gotta be wrong about that,” the hunter insisted.  “Every town’s got at least one church.”

“Not this town,”  the demon insisted back.  “It’s probably why Lucifer spent time here; it’d be more comfortable.”

*

Sam and Dean were in sight, both leaning against the Impala, where they stayed as Bobby and Crowley got out of the truck and walked over to them.  The demon found their expressions and body language fascinating.  Both brothers were deeply glad to see Bobby, but they also distrusted their own senses in that regard.  Was he really here?  Was it really him?  Why was he back?  Commendable paranoia, of course, but still amusing.  When they regarded him, the gladness vanished and the paranoia was ratcheted up to DefCon One.

“Well, we found the right bar,”  Dean said to Bobby.  “The owner admitted there’d been a fight and wanted to know why the hell we were interested…”

“Fake ID time?”  Bobby asked.

“Sioux Falls Detectives,”  Dean agreed, deadpan for a moment before he grinned.  “Jody will back us up.”

Bobby wanted to ask a dozen questions about his old friend, but choked them back.  Not the time, he told himself grimly.  “Out of your jurisdiction a bit, aren’t you?”

“We said the guy involved is believed to be an escapee from custody in Sioux Falls,”  Sam put in.  “After that, the bar owner told us what he knew about the stranger who’d come in about half an hour before things went pear-shaped, and we talked to a couple of his regulars who were there.  The woman injured wasn’t in the brawl, exactly, but she was in precisely the wrong place and was king hit, knocking her out.  They took her to the health centre here in town and there she’s been for the last three days. “

 “What do her family say about not getting her to a proper hospital?”

“No family except her daughter, who’s twelve.  The doctor’s a personal friend, got next of kin status and yeah, we think that’s dodgy,”  Sam told him.  “The barkeep though, he seemed to think it was fine.  Said the folk here preferred to stay in town, they didn’t want involvement with the authorities beyond.  That’s what he said.  Beyond.  There wasn’t a hint of anything demonic.”

“Well, my demon was on the spot so something was,”  Crowley murmured suggestively.

“And your demons are real sharp judges of whether someone’s possessed, are they?”  Sam shot back at him.

“Trade secrets, darling,”  the demon drawled.  “It’s possible to know, that’s all I will say, and what Helmut told me convinced me he witnessed angelic possession.”

“Helmut’s the demon?”  Dean asked and Crowley nodded.  “ _Angelic_ possession?”

“Have you forgotten that Lucifer is an angel?”

Dean glared at him.  “Have you forgotten you’re a complete douchebag?”

“Remember what I said about gratitude?”  Crowley murmured to Bobby, who grunted agreement and looked around the dusty main street, thinking of various Westerns he’d seen that would fit in perfectly in this scenario.

“Well, we’d better see her,”  he said at last.  “I don’t think we’ll learn a lot, but I need some first hand information.  Get out those IDs.  We also need to come up with some story as to why Crowley and I are with you.”

*

Bobby followed Sam and Dean into the medical centre, only half listening to them talking in character as Sioux Falls detectives.  Crowley was playing the role of a police psychiatrist, though what good he was supposed to do for someone in a coma, Bobby had no idea.  He was meant to be Crowley’s assistant and hoped desperately no one would ask him what that meant.

Dr Jeff Watkins didn’t seem suspicious of any of it.  Tired and anxious-looking, he listened to Dean’s bulldust account of why they needed to learn what they could about their target’s apparent king hit victim.  “Well, Chryseis is still unconscious,”  he admitted. “You’re not going to be able to talk to her for some days, I would imagine.”

“We were told you obstructed Ms Hannan’s removal to a major hospital for treatment,”  Dean said.

“Not obstructed,”  Watkins protested.  “It’s according to Chrys’s written wishes.  If anything happened to her, she wanted to remain here and be treated by me or another doctor at this centre.”

“That’s a pretty broad statement,”  Sam intimated.  “I can understand if it was a broken arm or something, but what if she’s got brain damage?”

“We have all the necessary equipment here,”  Watkins stated.  “We can do anything a big hospital can do!  Look, I delivered Chrys’s daughter and I’m a family friend;  I’d never let anything happen to her.”

He waved a hand towards the next door in the white corridor they were traversing.  “Anyway, she’s in here, so you’ll be able to see that she isn’t in distress.”

“Oh,”  said Bobby as they walked, “maybe you can tell us; what happened to your church?”

The doctor glanced at him, shrugging.  “It burned down, must be more than a year ago now.  I don’t know why they never rebuilt; it was a Catholic one and you’d think they would have the money, but nobody here was ever much into churchgoing.  I guess whoever wants to, just goes over to the next town.”

*

Chryseis Hannan, lying in the room’s only bed, looked as though she was normally asleep to Bobby, though she had a drip attached to her hand which presumably supplied nutrients.  She had long black hair, which was washed, dark skin, wearing some sort of soft cotton shift from what he could see, and Bobby judged her at roughly early thirties and attractive.  She wasn’t showing the physical signs of someone who had been Lucifer’s vessel.  The doctor was talking softly to Sam and Dean, attention away from Chryseis for the moment, so Bobby drifted up closer.  She didn’t seem to be having bad dreams;  did you dream in coma?  He reached out to lightly touch her wrist with some vague idea of comfort.

A sudden wave of nausea rolled over him and within him and he gagged, fearing he was about to throw up, right here on the patient.  But no one seemed to have noticed.  The triad of Dr Watkins, Sam and Dean were facing away and Crowley was for the moment paying attention there.  Bobby dropped his hand from Chryseis’ arm and the feeling faded.  Gods, what was the matter with him?  He took a careful breath, then another; the queasiness seemed to have faded and he resolved to check the dates on those tins in the cabin before he ate any more of their contents.

He reached again to pat her arm gently in helpless concern . . . and stumbled away from the bed, nausea again boiling in his stomach and a sudden blinding headache behind his eyes.  He had no more control left, but he managed a staggering step away from the bed before he vomited, dimly hearing the doctor’s shout of mingled anger and concern, hands on his shoulders guiding him out of the room.

The hot sickness was fading by the time they got him into the corridor.  Dr Watkins was calling for a nurse to come check on Chryseis and clean up Bobby’s mess and the cause himself was being attended to by another nurse who had materialised out of nowhere – not the way Crowley did it, thank God – and wishing he could just dissolve into smoke himself.

“I’m okay, just let me get outside,”  he mumbled, accepting the cup of iced water just to get the horrible taste out of his mouth, and the tissues to wipe his face.  Sam and Dean were on damage control; he could hear them talking to Watkins, and Crowley was by his side, hand still on his shoulder.  Which was okay, given that he was supposed to be assisting Bobby.

“What happened, Bobby?” the demon murmured urgently.

“I got sick when I touched her.”  He could hardly see.  The headache started up again when he tried to see, but Crowley led him outside, where the fresh air and sunlight eased him a little.  A few minutes later, Dean and Sam joined them over near the Impala and Bobby repeated what he had said to Crowley.

“Was she possessed?”  Dean asked.

“I can’t tell by touchin’, or I couldn’t!  We didn’t do any of the tests, as if we could with Dr Watson standing there…”

“Watkins,” said Sam.

“Whatever.”

“Bobby, answer me without thinking about it,”  Crowley said, rapid fire.  “When you think about Chryseis as she was when you touched her, what comes to mind?”

“Empty,”  Bobby blurted.  “Tainted.”

Crowley nodded in seeming satisfaction.  “I don’t know how it is, love, but it seems you _can_ establish possession by touching.  Or at least, sense what is left behind when Lucifer leaves a host.”

Crowley had a knack for dropping a clanger, Bobby decided; a combination of his clever mind and sense of timing.  He knew he was just staring at Crowley like an idjit, not even hearing the immediate questions from Sam and Dean.  After a moment he growled for silence and eventually got it.   “She’s not possessed now, is she?” 

“Can’t know for certain until she wakes,”  Crowley said, “but if it was me, I would have smoked out when the blow connected, if not before.”

“That would be right,”  Sam muttered.  Crowley shrugged a little, indifferent to the implication,

“Lucifer isn’t going to hang around and wait for you, Moose,”  he said.  “He probably only took the host as a means of gathering information, and the brawl happened when he jumped from one meatsuit to the next.”

“Do you have any idea where he might have gone next?”  Dean asked Crowley.

“No,”  the King said bluntly.  “If you want my advice…”

“We don’t,”  Sam muttered, but Dean elbowed his brother and Crowley continued.

“You will let Lucifer go wherever and trust that he stays away from you.  That is all anyone has ever been able to hope for.  Your interactions with him have given you a false idea of your ability to deal with him.  I can’t believe Moose still has that, after his experiences, but so it seems to be.”

“But how could Bobby sense him?”  Dean asked.

The concern seemed genuine and Crowley devoted his thoughts to the conundrum.  Bobby had reacted to Lucifer, but not to demons, or he would have surely reacted to Crowley himself.  _Which is fortunate for me_ , Crowley mused, _but very specific.  Who would benefit from a human that could track the Devil? Hmm._

“If I have to touch somebody that Lucifer is possessing to find that out, I don’t know how much help I’ll be,”  Bobby muttered.  “Look, I need to go get something to eat.  I had breakfast hours ago and now I’ve lost that.”  Crowley moved closer to Bobby, very aware that Sam and Dean were focused on him.  He wondered whether they had a salt-loaded gun or perhaps an angelic dagger on them.

“Come on, love, let’s find you a burger,”  he said, and Sam made a wordless sound of disgust.

“Can you just _stop_ talking to him like that?”  he demanded.  “It’s worse than all the Squirrel and Moose shit.”  Dean blinked, trying not to laugh at his brother’s choice of words, but then seemed to realise that Sam was not joking.  Crowley, of course, had never been in any doubt.

“I think I made it quite clear to you, Sam, what my feelings were,”  he said flatly.  “I understood total disclosure was the price for being _allowed_ to remain with Bobby.  You even spelled out that I had to be honest with him and intimated that you would check.  Did you perhaps believe that Robert would be disgusted, dispose of me and return to his true mind?”

“What the hell?”  Dean asked, turning as though not sure which of them he should be addressing.

“Sam!  And Dean,”  Bobby shouted.  “As far as I can tell, I’m in my right mind and I’m not disgusted!  And for your information, Crowley and I slept together last night.  As in had sex.  Which is all the fucking detail – no pun intended – you two are going to get.  And he can keep talking to me as he has been and as he likes, because he’s all that is keeping me grounded.”  Horrified, he felt emotion welling up and covered it with anger.  Crowley, not fooled, put an arm around his shoulders.

“Say the word and we’re gone, Robert,”  he murmured.

“In a moment,”  Bobby muttered back.  “Okay, you two.  You go hunt Lucifer or do whatever it is comes next.  I think he’s done whatever he needed to do here and he’s in the wind, but I’m going to be here and I’ll make sure this town is all right.  If you two can be polite, we may even help you out when you call.  Crowley, if you could move us back to the truck, I’d appreciate it.  This town seems pretty quiet, but I don’t like to leave my vehicle out in the open all the same.”

If Sam or Dean replied, Bobby Singer didn’t hear what they said.  He found himself seated in the driver’s seat of his truck, hands on the wheel and Crowley sitting next to him.  He shivered, involuntary and unexpected, though the air wasn’t that cold.  He couldn’t get the image of how the Winchesters had looked, their expressions as he vented, nor shake the feeling that there was something all of them had overlooked.  “Never did get my damn burger, but now I just want to get home,”  he muttered to the demon.


	8. Chapter 8

When he finally drove the truck into the front area of the cabin, no more than a beaten earth widening of the track, surrounded by forest, Bobby felt an intense relief.  He climbed out and Crowley followed, his gaze thoughtful as he pondered what had taken place.  Once inside, Bobby lit the fire in the hearth, though it wasn’t really cold.  It was the presence of the fire he wanted, the sight and smell of it, which meant home.  Crowley moved to his side and Bobby turned his head to look at him.  “Did I really say all that to the boys?  About you and me?”

“I think so, darling.”

“You really think Sam buttonholed you about your, uh, feelings because he thought I would give you the boot, once I knew how you really felt?  I thought he knew me better’n that.”

“Neither of them have known anything about you for four years, and you haven’t known them,”  Crowley said.  “Sam tried to turn me back to human.”  He prodded his own chest. “He came very, very close to it, would have succeeded if Dean hadn’t stopped him.”  The demon turned about, then back to him as though he had decided on something.  “Robert, they’ve told you about me during the time you were…”  he waved his hand upwards.  “I did things anyone would be hated for.  Sam, in particular, hates me for certain things I did, and for setting in motion the events which made Dean a Knight of Hell.  Now they see me as having got my claws in you.  You were their father in all but name.  You hunted and burned demons with the best.”

Now he touched Bobby’s chest, tapping lightly in time with his words.  “Not just with the best, you were the best.  Your name was already known in Hell, love.”

“Don’t know how I feel about that.”

“They moved on,”  Crowley said, ignoring this.  “They lost their own father, they moved on.  They lost you.  The same.  You’re a bunch of memories, love, you’re not the same man you were and they’ve changed a damn sight more than you have.  So no, they don’t know you and they don’t trust you, because their Bobby Singer would never shack up with a demon.”

“A male demon,”  Bobby muttered, facing it.

“Well, that too, I suppose.  You never gave any hint of even noticing the other team, hmm?”

“None of their damn business, or anyone’s.  I never did anythin’ about it till you.”  Bobby sighed and headed towards the kitchen end of the cabin.  “I’m making some sandwiches.”

Crowley stayed quiet while Bobby made his lunch and took the plate to the one of the two armchairs he’d chosen as “his,”  studying him thoughtfully until the hunter looked up and caught him at it. “This where I ask you if you see somethin’ you like?”

He was surprised not to get a smirk and a flirty sort of comment;  instead, Crowley’s expression remained grim and Bobby reflected that the boys weren’t the only people to have changed over those four years.  Crowley might consider that span of time to be fleeting indeed, but he had been through a lot, going by Sam and Dean’s account, as well as his own.

“Heaven wants Lucifer back in prison.”

“Well, duh…”  Bobby began but Crowley held up a hand, shaking his head.

“So they return a soul in which the Winchesters have an interest – that’s how they would think of it – and sure enough, the Winchesters show up.  Lucifer could have gone so far away that your boys would never find him, but his ego keeps him here.  He has things to settle with the only mortals to get the better of him, plus they interest him, the Righteous Man and his ideal vessel.  Other factors as well, but that’s the bone of it, love.  The angels know these things, they want a trace on Lucifer, so they imbed one in their lure.  Lucifer finds someone who says yes to possession – more of those than you might think, love – but human hosts aren’t strong enough to host Lucifer for very long, so he must keep playing that game and leaving hosts scattered about.  Good chance you’ll come near one, with your links to Sam and Dean.  You touch this vessel not long after he’s jumped free and bam, reaction.  The angels now have a pretty good idea where Lucifer is and they come looking.”

“I’m the lure?”  Bobby grumbled at him.  “First I’m a – an interlude, I think you said, now I’m bait?

Crowley leaned over to his chair, put an arm around him and rested his chin on Bobby’s shoulder.  Bobby kept grumbling for a minute, then sighed and put his own arm back around Crowley.  “You’re a link in the chain,”  the demon murmured.  “You, me, the Winchesters, all of us linked to the Father of Demons.  Remember, Lucifer didn’t actually ask for or plan this;  Amara simply threw him out of Castiel and away.  So far as I can tell, she didn’t send him anywhere in particular.  Whatever Lucifer did have planned, whether to hold on to Cas’s vessel, or more general bastardry, we can’t know.  He hasn’t returned to Hell, that’s all I can tell you.  He wouldn’t have planned to possess that woman in particular.  She was probably just the first to agree.”

“You think she was a Satanist or something?”

Crowley rolled his eyes theatrically.  “Robert, really.  That requires true belief, but all Lucifer needs is the agreement.  She didn’t have to understand what she was accepting.”

“And the angels stuck a tracer in me.”

“Exactly.”

“Angels.”  Bobby said the word as he might have growled a swear word.  This was assbackwards, he thought;  it was demons he should fear, not angels, supposedly the good guys.  Well, he thought, if he’d learned any lesson in his years, it could well be that there were no good guys.  He turned his head towards Crowley, close up beside him, feeling the brush of the other’s beard against his own cheek.  “Can you find out whether they’ve, um, really implanted something?”

“No.”  As though it hurt him to say it, Crowley added.  “You would have to ask Castiel.”

“Shit.”

Mildly surprised, the demon asked, “I know why I might have a problem with that, but why would you?”

“Isn’t he one of those feathery bastards any more?”

“Oh yes.  But he’s gone native, according to most of those heavenly morons.  Much too fond of humans, particularly the Winchesters.  He must be having a wonderful time trying to sort out the pearly realms or whatever they’re called.”

“Well, he never talked to me until Sam organised it so as they could bust that Metatron guy out,”  Bobby muttered, looking at the fire in front of them.  “Cas never did me any favours while I was up there.  To him, I was done.”

“Worth a try,” Crowley suggested.

“Maybe.”  Bobby said no more for a moment, then got to his feet.  “I’m gonna go for a walk, maybe scout a bit in the forest, see if I can find any deer, or signs of ‘em anyway.  I need to think.”  He hesitated for a moment, then leaned down again to kiss Crowley’s cheek.  The demon laughed and reached up to reposition him, pulling Bobby into a proper kiss on the lips.  “That ain’t gonna help me think,”  the hunter told him, but he did seem more cheerful.  “Will you be here when I get back?”

“Absolutely, darling.”

“Okay then.”  Bobby turned back when he got to the door, casting a gaze around the cabin as though seeing it for the first time, and then back at the demon standing by the fire.  “You ought to have better than this,”  he muttered, and was out before Crowley could answer him.

He walked, enjoying the simple effort of it, the chilly breeze across his face, the non perfection of feeling a bit cold, a bit out of shape.  Was he in the same state as before he died, Bobby wondered.  Well, not right before he died, with the bullet and all, but that same fitness, remembered somewhere and recreated with power he couldn’t even imagine.  Even Crowley couldn’t do that kind of crap.

He smiled to himself, shaking his head a little as he thought about the demon, wondering what on earth was going to happen between them now.  Assuming they dealt with Lucifer, or somebody did, and he was able to have a halfway normal life.  “Life after death,”  Bobby said aloud to the forest around him.  He wondered how long Crowley was going to put up with being out here with him, once the novelty wore off.  Bobby knew the demon couldn’t really understand his, Bobby’s, concerns about the gay thing, of what the people in this little town were going to think when they worked it out.  His life wasn’t going to be anything like it had been with Karen, Bobby was sure of that much.

He was walking along a deer path, not a human made track, taking care to note landmarks so he didn’t get lost.  He didn’t know these woods and it would be damn embarrassing to have to call Crowley for rescue.  The trees grew thickly and he couldn’t see very far in any direction.  That meant he almost fell over the girl before he saw her.

She was only a kid, too young to be out here alone, Bobby thought as he stopped, hands out palm up, being as unthreatening as he could.  The girl was in jeans and a hoodie, wearing a ball cap and a backpack, and she backed up against the nearest tree, her face tense…something else.  “You know me?”  Bobby asked carefully.  “You from the town, darlin’?”  He definitely recognised her from somewhere and the only place he’d seen people since returning, apart from the boys and Crowley, was in Winterridge.

The girl looked up, the cap falling from her head in the quick movement.  Black wavy hair fell free and Bobby Singer made a low sound of surprise.  For a moment her face was entirely human, fixed with terror not of him, because her expression was full of desperate appeal, but of someone, something else.

Then the person behind those eyes was gone, shoved back, and the girl’s eyes glinted yellow.  She smiled.  “Remember me?”

“No,”  Bobby whispered, not in denial, but to the thing he had seen in those eyes. “She’s a _child._   Even you have to…”

“You’re all spawn,”  Lucifer said, waving the girl’s hand negligently.  “But I’m going to spare her, very soon.”  Bobby saw the faint mottling on the girl’s face and neck, the first signs of the body’s failure as host for the Devil. 

“You have to ask,”  Bobby growled.  “How the hell did you make her agree?”

“She wanted to help her mother,”  Lucifer shrugged the slim shoulders.  “Her mother did it to save her.  I may have….given the impression I could just move into little Kyra here.  Then when I proved too much for Chryseis, what a surprise, I offered Kyra the chance to save her mother, to ensure that she would wake from the coma healthy and in her right mind.  Quite an accident that she was struck, by the way.  All I needed was information and seems I chose the wrong person to ask.”

Questions warred in Bobby’s mind. He knew he was in actual mortal peril.   He had come out here without even salt in his pocket, or a flask of holy water, not that those would be more than pinpricks of irritation to this creature. 

“You owe me help and sanctuary,”  Lucifer announced.  “You promised that when I carried your message.”

“We didn’t make any fucking deal,”  Bobby snarled.  “Impersonating a Crossroads demon is comin’ down in the world for you, isn’t it?  Why the hell did you even bother?  That was nowhere near here.”

“I’d just worn out my welcome with the beautiful Chryseis,”  Lucifer said, “and was testing out my new vessel.  I had a theory that children might prove stronger than adults, all that untapped energy, but it doesn’t seem to be so, alas.  Then I heard your call.  There is no demon on that crossroads, by the way;  Hell no longer answers to Crowley, not while the true ruler is free.”

“Whatever.  It doesn’t mean you can invoke Deal Magic.”

“No,”  Lucifer agreed softly;  the demonic smile on the young girl’s face easily the most obscene thing Bobby could remember.  “But it  does mean you said yes to me, Robert Singer.  And you’re something very special now, very rare.  You’re not the first soul ever to be sent back, though maybe the first sent back as bait.  You aren’t my intended vessel and you aren’t an angel, but nor are you an ordinary mortal, not quite.  You’re a gift from God to me.”

“So why’re you still talkin’ and not moving in?”  Bobby asked, noting that the body of Kyra Hannan was standing motionless, only the expression betraying Lucifer’s presence.  “It’s _not_ a done deal, is it?”

“Oh, very well, not as such.”  Lucifer shrugged. “Sometimes folk will believe it and open the door for me without realising they were fooled.  But you will honour the pledge you made and give me sanctuary within your flesh.  If you don’t, I’ll stay where I am until my power burns this child from the inside out.”

Bobby reminded himself not to panic.  “Seems you’ve been tryin’ to get the better of the Winchesters for quite a while without success,”  he observed casually.  “They know you’re prowlin’ around, hell, didn’t God add you to the team for awhile there?  They’re not gonna be taking it easy and nor is Crowley, wherever he is right now.  So you do what you have to – if you can, before they come for you.”

He turned and with all the control he had, gave Lucifer his back and started walking along the path he had come, thinking desperately, “ _Cas, now would be a real good time to show up!_ ”

He made maybe three strides.

                                                                                   *

Sam and Dean Winchester were about to have dinner – burgers from a diner on their way back from Winterridge – when both brothers had the living crap scared out of them by the sudden appearance of a distraught demon, already yelling at them as he materialised in the doorway.

Sam, temporarily unarmed while at the dinner table, grabbed a packet of salt before realising that Crowley wasn’t attacking anyone.  The demon was gabbling a mile a minute, until Dean grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.  “We didn’t understand any of that!  What the fuck is the matter with you?”

“I can’t find Bobby,”  Crowley snarled in his face.  “He went out for a walk and when he didn’t come back by dark, I went looking.  He’s not anywhere!”

Dean stopped, realising that he had his hands on the King of Hell’s black clad shoulders and perhaps that shaking an upset demon wasn’t that smart a move.  He absently patted Crowley, then saw the red flares rise in his eyes and stepped back.  “Easy, man!”

“Man?”  Sam muttered, then sighed deeply.  “Look, Crowley, Bobby is used to being on his own for long stretches, okay, and not necessarily reporting back.  What did he say he was doing?”

“Something about following deer tails.  No, trails.”

Crowley’s indignation was dying down and he took a deep breath before one of the insufferable Winchester nightmares could tell him to.  Dean even cleared some books and mess from some of the table and gestured him to a seat.  “Sit.  You want a drink?”

“I’ve got one.”  Crowley half pulled his flask from his coat pocket, then belatedly realised what he was doing.  “Sorry.  Yes.”

“Hang on.”  Both the brothers retreated to a side of the kitchen, evidently still not realising that demonic hearing could pick up every inarticulate whisper. 

“You can’t just….be nice to him like that!”

“I’m not being nice.  If he doesn’t calm down, we’re not gonna find out the details and maybe Bobby is actually missing.  You think of that?”

“We probably don’t even have anything he’ll drink.  Beer?  No.  There’s some of Bobby’s rotgut but he’ll want that fancy shit, that Scottish crap….”

“I can make some tea.  He drinks tea.”

“You can’t make tea.”

Crowley listened to the dialogue with half an ear, actually amused by some of it.  Sam appeared to be taking over the tea making, as Dean came back to the table and sat down opposite him.  “Tea,”  he explained redundantly.  “We don’t have any of your usual stuff.”

“That’s fine.  I’ll combine.”  He set his flask on the table.  Dean was evidently having trouble thinking of anything else to say but that was all right, hardly a new thing.  Crowley found himself relaxing from the panic he had wound himself into.  Oddly, he felt almost at home here with his best enemies.  Sam came back and carefully set down a full mug beside him, dropping a couple of sachets of sugar beside it.  Crowley nodded tiredly and lifted the mug; surprisingly good tea. “Thank you, Moose.”

Sam sighed again – he was like a teenaged girl sometimes, the demon thought – and said, “You’re welcome.”

Crowley blinked and looked over the table to the larger and shaggier Winchester.  “I am?”

The brothers looked at one another, Dean seemingly not quite believing Sam’s capitulation either, but Sam said to Crowley, “Yeah.  You’re not doing anything demonic to Bobby.  You wouldn’t come here if you were.  And he wants you.  So you’re okay. . .  until you do something, anyway.”

“Right.”  _And there’s the Moose I know and don’t exactly love._

“So give us the rest about Bobby.  Was he okay, after we left?”

“No,”  Crowley answered.  “He believes you two still don’t trust him and I think the angels sent him back here as a lure for Lucifer.”  He explained his reasoning as he had done for Bobby.

“Bobby’s getting sick like that when he touched that woman, that rang an alarm in Heaven,”  Sam summarised and the demon nodded.  “So angels could be in Winterridge right now trying to find Lucifer…and could be they grabbed Bobby to find out what he knows.”

“It’s not humans,”  Crowley said quietly.  “Only angels or demons could just take someone, in such a way and cover their tracks so that I couldn’t trace him.  I should have gone looking earlier but I…”  He waved a hand in frustration.  “He said he wanted to think and I thought – he might be annoyed if I went looking for him.”  When they stared, he shrugged irritably.  “I’m not exactly used to considering that sort of thing.”

“Bobby doesn’t mess with people like that,”  Dean said, with unexpected kindness as he read the very real distress in Crowley’s expression.  “He doesn’t go for chick flick moments and he’d be the first to tell you that.  Now, we’ll grab our stuff and you can get us back to Bobby’s place.”

Crowley watched, not quite believing, as Dean and Sam got their kit together with remarkable efficiency, except for the complaining and swearing at one another, which appeared to be the norm.  They were ready before he would have expected it and advanced on him with resigned expressions.  Crowley sighed, reached out a hand to mentally include them in his teleportation, and then the brothers were blinking at the inside of Bobby’s cabin.  Crowley looked about too, rather forlornly hoping to see the hunter back, grumbling at him for panicking.

Dean and Sam studied him.  Any thought that the demon had been faking concern, or worse, leading them into a trap, vanished as they saw his look.  He went to the kitchen nook, picked up Bobby’s mug and set it down again.

“Can you track him even some of the way he went?”  Dean asked after a moment and Crowley nodded. “Okay then, let’s go.”


	9. Chapter 9

_Two hunters and a demon walked through a forest at night_. 

To Crowley, that felt like a bad joke, but here he was, with a Winchester either side of him, a rising wind blowing through his hair in a totally uncivilised way, rising to Lucifer’s bait.  Sam and Dean had no idea what might be out here other than the cabin and Bobby hadn’t had much of a chance to explore.

He stopped on the track, as a thought came to him.  He was thinking too much like a human here.  Distance meant nothing to him, or to Lucifer, not as it did to Bobby or the Winchesters.  He could travel to the realm of Hell, of course, and so could Lucifer.  Lucifer could simply have tapped Bobby’s shoulder and zapped him to the far side of the world, but he wouldn’t, because he wanted the game, wanted the best of all human hunters to come after him. 

“Come on,”  Dean muttered to him.  “We’ve only been walking for about an hour…”

“No point, when Lucifer’s already here.”

“What the fuck are you playing at?”  That was Sam behind him, instantly ready to believe the worst. It could have hurt his feelings…well, if he hadn’t been a demon and hadn’t done the worst, from time to time.  Crowley ignored Sam, turning in a slow circle to sense the woods around them, rather than try to see or hear anything in the tree shrouded darkness.  The flashlights the Winchesters held had wrecked their night vision anyhow, but he wasn’t affected.  Crowley waved a hand towards the lights and they went dead, to immediate protests.

*

Bobby was knocked to the ground by what felt like a large truck, except that he was alive afterwards.  The force flattened him and he gasped desperately to draw air, hoping his lungs were actually intact.  Then a storm of air rolled him so that he was on his back, staring up at the body of Kyra Hannan.  The yellow stare of Lucifer stabbed at him from the girl’s eyes.

They were not where Bobby had been walking through the forest; this was a field with softer ground and grass padding the ground.  The sky behind Kyra was also darkening towards night and Bobby’s thoughts jolted to the realisation that he had lost several hours in what he had thought was the moment of being flung to the ground.  “I don’t give ya permission,”  he croaked, just in case that was still in doubt.  He managed to sit up, but didn’t try to stand.  Let Lucifer have the high ground if he wanted it;  Bobby knew he was dead the moment that the fallen archangel lost interest in this game.

“Thanks for the gratuitous advice, Mr Singer,”  Lucifer retorted.  “You really think I’m from the shallow end of Creation, don’t you?”

“Was that the special bus that hit me?”  Not smart to snark this creature, Bobby supposed, but he was still hugely relieved at being able to breathe.  Rather than being furious, Lucifer seemed more confused than anything.  The smallness of his vessel made him look almost pathetic and Bobby warned himself:  _This ain’t a kid.  Don’t forget_.  “You gonna kill me if I get up?”

Lucifer muttered something and stalked forward, holding out a hand.  Warily, Bobby took it and let the archangel pull him upright, as though he weighed nothing at all.  No wonder his vessels burned out, with that power inside such fragile shells.  Even now, Kyra looked as though she had a fever, her eyes too bright in the thin face mottled with discolouration and what looked like bruising, the beginning of inevitable destruction in one of Lucifer’s hosts.  The hunter looked about, unable to see anything resembling a landmark.  There was a road not too far away; he thought he could see fenceposts.  “Tell me somethin’.  I was thinking about scouts seein’ me, when I showed up first thing, and then you had the uniform.  How is that?”

“I may not be able to use you as a vessel just yet, but you’re as weak minded as any other human,”  Lucifer said dismissively.  “It suited me to be underestimated.  I just tap at your mind and show you what I want you to see.  It’s fun.”

“And we’re back where the angels threw me down, aren’t we?”  Bobby asked suddenly, not sure what had caused the click in his mind which identified the location.  “

“Why did you ask for the King of Hell?”  Lucifer said instead, his very avoidance confirming the truth for Bobby.  The girl’s voice was incongruously high, but still menacing.  She walked around behind Bobby, causing his neck to prickle with cold shivers.

“I was kinda without any resources,”  he began.

“There was a road into a town where you could have gone.  Forget the horrible embarrassments; you could have done that and survived the shame.  But fresh from Heaven, you call a demon!”

“Which you ain’t,”  Bobby returned.  “If we’re talking strictly in terms of species.  You’re an angel and yeah, I know they hear prayers, but I wasn’t talkin’ to you; you shouldn’t have ‘overheard.’  So that suggests another kind of inside man in Heaven, don’t it?”

“Why Crowley?”  Lucifer flatly ignored his hint.

“Angels asked me that too.  Because I thought he’d help.  Because I was….able to talk to him, from Heaven.  Because he…”  Bobby ran out of words suddenly, wanting to keep the truth of Crowley to himself, for no better reason than that he didn’t want this pustulant, whining, corrupted entity to know.  “You thought you could use me.  I get that.  But you can’t.  If you take my body and go anywhere near the Winchesters, they’re gonna pepper me with buckshot.  They already don’t trust me too much.  Why the hell don’t you just vanish?  You could go anywhere in the world, just lay quiet till we’re all dead and hunters forget you?”

“How did you get back here, Robert Singer?”

The tone was almost friendly, jolting him.  “You know,”  he muttered.  “The angels…”

Lucifer continued to stare at him, then gave a slight nod.  “Exactly.  The angels.  I don’t give a crap what you humans do, Robert Singer.  Even Sam and Dean, entertaining though they are, aren’t a match for me.  But my dear brothers and sisters in Heaven are a different matter, though it hurts to say it.  All together, they could be a problem for me.  Chuck isn’t going to be around for awhile.  He’s got a new toy, this sibling relationship to explore, and that leaves middle management in charge of the store.  Maybe Chuck forgave me, but they sure haven’t.”

Something prickled in Bobby’s mind; a memory which wouldn’t quite present itself for inspection.   He tried to focus on it, not easy with Satan standing before him, but since Lucifer didn’t appear about to kill him this instant, he dared to close his eyes for a moment and focus purely on that.  On the shreds of memory those reps of the Heavenly Host had left within him; on a voice, flat and disinterested and nearly genderless, saying words that seemed to chill his very blood. 

_“You will incorporate.  There are things we need to learn.”_

He felt as though an explosion went off in his brain; fire and ice at once, the breaking of a seal.  They had chosen it so, that at this moment he would remember, and that flare of memory would send an alert to the creatures which had disposed of him, in ways which were magic and death and beyond all human comprehension.  ‘They’re coming,”  he coughed abruptly, seeing sharp suspicion flare in the young girl’s eyes.  “You better run…”

“Why would you….”   A roaring rose up in Bobby’s ears, a sudden weakness of muscles and spirit, as his unwitting call to Heaven was answered.  He had to fight to stay on his feet as figures appeared around him, dark clad and grim faced, the warriors and blood spillers of Heaven.  Bobby turned back to the figure of the girl, to meet a gaze of pure terror.  This was all Kyra, he knew;  Lucifer had heeded his warning and jumped free.  His mouth was dry as he faced the angels.  They could drag all he knew out of his head if they wanted to, and if they knew he had warned Lucifer, they weren’t going to like it.  _But I ain’t gonna give anyone to you, not even him._

He counted them;  six, no, seven angels ranged around him and the girl.  He had no idea what level of awareness Lucifer had allowed her, whether she knew what was going on when the Devil rode her mind, or whether she had just woken in the dark forest with no idea of who he was or what the people surrounding them wanted.

“He’s gone,”  he growled, not having to fake the shakiness in his voice.  “This was his vessel and he’s left her.”

“Lucifer isn’t in the habit of leaving his vessels still breathing and with usable eyes in their heads,”  one of the angels said.

“Look at her!”  Bobby retorted.  “You can see the damage he’s done already.”  He couldn’t remember whether this angel, or any of them, were among those who had interrogated him in Heaven and then flung him earthwards.  Trying to think about the events of Heaven was like hearing with cotton wool stuffed in his ears; muffled and vague and distant.  “If you’d been down here lookin’ instead of waiting for me ‘n him to meet up so you’d get a call, maybe you’d already have him.  Or you could have, you know, actually talked to me about what you wanted.”

Another of the angels advanced on Kyra, who seemed unable to move.  He touched her forehead lightly and then turned to the one who had addressed Bobby.  “She remembers that she allowed Lucifer in,”  he said.  “He told her this would save her mother.”

“Another host?”  the female angel asked.  Bobby was sure now that he had met her.

“Yes.  The body lies in a drugged sleep but there is no mind left.”

Kyra let out a gasping sob, but none of the angels regarded her.  “This host is strong, unusually so despite the size.  It’s possible that Lucifer will return to it.”

The following silence went on for at least a minute, making Bobby sure they were holding a conversation he couldn’t follow, like adults using Pig Latin to stop a kid eavesdropping.  They turned back towards him and Kyra, who shrank against him.  Bobby put his arm carefully around her shoulders in a gesture of protection he knew he couldn’t back up.  But he had abandoned her a short time ago when Lucifer was still within her mind and her body, in the hope that the Devil would simply not care enough to swat him.  He had been wrong about that.  He wouldn’t abandon this child again.

“Close your eyes, darlin’,”  he murmured to Kyra.  She did and Bobby caught the gaze of the female angel.  Dark hair, blue eyes in a cold, classically beautiful face, a creature who had never been human, as Crowley had.  Who could never understand short-lived, contentious humanity.  Was she making a decision right now to simply crush them, to avoid a possible problem later?  They’d seemed to consider Kyra potentially valuable, another bait to be thrown out on a line for Lucifer.

“Leah,”  another angel said.

Her chin dipped in a faint nod.  Bobby gazed back at her and then a sudden surge of fear in him made him also close his eyes.  He squeezed the lids tighter as a flare of light burned against his retinas, and in the microseconds available, tried to turn away, pressing Kyra’s face against his side to shield her eyes.  There was damn good reason why the first thing an angel ever said to a human being was, “ _Fear not_. _”_

It felt like dying.

Again.

*

He woke gradually to his senses; first aware of being present, lying down and aching head to foot.  Then voices, a senseless hubbub around him, filtering down to someone crying and trying to talk, anxious male voices, then realising he was being lifted, fading back into the comfort of oblivion.

Waking again, feeling the touch of cotton, a comfortable mattress, someone’s hand against his.  A low, rasping voice with an accent that wasn’t his….British, that was right.

“Five, six days as an item and you do this to me, Robert.  I’m not at all sure my constitution can take it.”

He struggled even to open his eyes, so flattened did he feel, but when he did, he saw only the faint light from a candle some feet away, throwing black shadows against the plain walls of a room.  Beside him was Crowley, blacker still.  Even that gentle candlelight hurt and he closed his eyes again, feeling Crowley’s hand pass gently over his forehead.

“You were burned, love,”  he said quietly, “all over your face and other exposed skin.  You were there when an angel manifested; your boys and I agree on that, for a wonder.  Your eyes will be painful for awhile, but at least you had the wit to close ‘em or they’d be blackened pits.  Dean called Castiel to ‘cure’ you, by the way.  He did what he could, although he said there was some damage remaining you'd have to deal with alone. And then he told Dean that you shouldn’t be alive.  Dean was actually a bit miffed at him for that and the celestial budgie has no clue why.  It’s adorable.  So, was it Lucifer who did this?”

“No,”  Bobby coughed.  “Get me a drink, can’t you?”

“Right here, of course, darling.”  He felt the cold silver of Crowley’s flask, then the burning flavour of his favourite whisky.  Trust Crowley not to assume he meant water.  Bobby’s mind seemed to clear and focus almost instantly; he lay with his eyes shut, casting about for the memories.  Walking, talking with Kyra, being zapped somewhere ….the field…something about angels, the ones who had decided his fate in Heaven.  Damn it, it was just on the tip of his mind.  He was the sacrificial goat, GPS-tagged by angels….Lucifer….the angels had teleported into reality, called by the beacon inside Bobby himself.

He had closed his eyes and in the next microsecond, the exploding power of the manifestation had shoved him into unconsciousness.  There was another fragment he couldn’t get, something about the last moment of awareness when he had faced Lucifer.  Something he had done….or said.

“I am so fucking tired of this shit,”  he muttered.  “Aren’t you?”

There was a brief, surprised silence and then the King of Hell’s low voice by his ear.  “Always, love.”  Crowley’s hand patted his, very lightly.  “But the fun comes back, I promise.”

“Where are we, anyway?”

“In the bunker.”

“How’d you find me?”

“Your boys and I went out looking for you, and when the angels did their flashing act, I was able to home in on you and the girl.”

Bobby let out a sound that was half groan, half a laugh.  “This is just crazy.  Where are the boys?”

“Also in the bunker.  They were in here until the early hours of the morning, and have gone to get some sleep.  It’s been about five hours – I believe the sun is actually up - and I promised I’d let them know when you woke up.”

“Are you going to?”

“Of course not.  Everyone knows you can’t trust a demon.”

“So if we’re not gonna be interrupted, why don’t we….”  Nothing like threats to one’s life by supernatural forces to remind you to seize the moment.

“In a while, darling.  There are some things you need to know.”

“No there ain’t,”  Bobby growled.

“Lucifer’s last host was sitting next to you when we got there.  We had to peel her off you;  she was hysterical.”

“She’s just a kid, you better not have hurt her, any of you.”

“No,”  Crowley said.  Bobby wasn’t sure he liked the careful way that the demon said that, but it was hardly something to take up with him now.

“You, uh, take her to family or hospital or wherever?”

“She’s sitting on the floor outside your door until she knows you’re all right.”

“What?  Did you guys kidnap the kid?”

“Please calm down or Sam and Dean will be in here and you can bet they’ll kick me out,”  Crowley said.  “Lucifer killed her mother by possessing her, and he deliberately chose someone with no other family except the girl – who was his backup to give him a bit more time before he had to talk another human into what has to be the ultimate dead end job.  Kyra told us you saved her and she threatened to scream the town down if we left her with anyone.  Your boys found this persuasive.”  His tone indicated that he didn’t.  “It’s three am and some change around now, which is why the Winchesters haven’t stormed in here already when they heard you.  Kyra was supposed to be in bed also, but modern children are so spoiled.”

“A few weeks with Amara and now you’re an expert, huh?”  Something Crowley had said was niggling at him, but Bobby shoved the intrusive thoughts away.

“I rule a Hell full of incompetent morons, love – or I will again soon - it’s next thing to demonic day care.  Let Kyra see you and then she’ll perhaps get out of our way for awhile.”

“Fine, maybe you’d better get her then.”

When Crowley opened the door to his room, the electric lights in the corridor outside blazed in and Bobby squeezed his eyes shut as pain stabbed through them.  When he opened them again, the door was closed and two figures stood by his bed; Crowley and the short, slender one that had to be Kyra.  After a moment, Bobby’s vision readjusted and he could see her face, the human brown of her eyes focused on him out of the mottled damage to her skin.

“Are you all right, darlin’?” he asked.

Kyra nodded, still tearless despite all that had happened.  Perhaps, Bobby thought, she knew that the worst thing in the world had already happened, and once it did, there was no point in crying.  He wished he’d thought to ask Crowley whether Kyra knew the truth about her mother, or had they only said she was sick in hospital.  Damn the angels; just being around them seemed to damage his memory.  “You made him stop,”  she said suddenly.  “You saved me.”

He had walked away, thinking to call Lucifer’s bluff, if it was one.  Seizing him had backfired on the archangel, but not from any heroics of Bobby’s.  Crowley had called it; he was the angels’ lure, tossed out in thoughts of bringing the Winchesters and thus, Lucifer himself, close enough to be caught in their net.

“I was just there,”  he tried to say, weariness welling up in him again.  “Let Crowley take you back to your room, all right?  I have to sleep.”

“My mother went to sleep,”  Kyra said.  “He was shaped like a man but he was glowing like he had a fire in him, and he hurt her.  He pushed her so far back that she can’t wake up, and he told me she’d wake if I let him in my mind.  But I asked those other men and they said he lied.”

“It’s what he does,”  Bobby told her gently.  He flicked a pleading glance at Crowley and the demon nodded, brushing a hand lightly on Kyra’s shoulder.

“He’s got to rest, love,”  Crowley told Kyra.  “You can talk to him when he wakes up again.”  He tried to steer the girl away, but she pulled away from his touch on her shoulder.

“Those others, they said nobody can find us here.  Is that right?”  Evidently, Bobby realised, he was now the authority, the one Kyra had fixed on to trust.

“That’s right,”  he assured her.  “You’re safe here, darlin’.” 

“Because my uncle was looking for me,”  Kyra said.  “He promised my mom if she trusted the Shining Man, it would only be for a short time and we’d have wonderful lives, we would go somewhere perfect to live and everything would be fine.”  Her voice shook at last, but if she was crying, Bobby couldn’t see in the low light.  Nor was he paying much attention to her emotion.

“You said she had no other family,”  he growled at Crowley.  And then he remembered.  “That doctor.  He was next of kin, we never did find out how or why.  Girl – Kyra - what’s your uncle’s name?  Is he a real uncle, I mean, is he your mom’s brother or your dad’s brother?”  Belatedly he remembered that Chryseis was black and Jeff Watkins not, which made it a pretty dumb question, but the girl was already answering, shaking her head.

“I don’t know my dad.  He went away when I was too little to remember.  But Uncle Jeff isn’t Mom’s brother.  They’ve known each other a long time, though, they went to college together, and he….he helped us when things were bad, back in Kansas City.  He helped us move here.”  Her flood of words stopped as suddenly as they had begun and she turned to look at Crowley for a moment and then back at Bobby. 

Bobby realised he had a headache, it wasn’t just tiredness.  He was about to say something, he wasn’t sure what, but the pain of the headache abruptly increased, and nausea roiled in his stomach.  He tried to ask Crowley to get the kid out of here, but too late.  He vomited, at least managing to twist around so it landed on the far side of the bed.  As he spat the last of it, he heard the door close.


	10. Chapter 10

 

“I should have let him rest,”  Kyra said remorsefully, following Crowley along a corridor to the room she had been given.  Crowley looked at her.  She had been crying a little, at the end, but was calm now.

“Well, I asked him to let you come in,”  he said, shrugging.  “I think he’ll survive it.  Possibly the whiskey wasn’t the best thing to give him at that moment.  Anyway, what he said is right; nobody will get in here that we don’t want.  So why don’t you go back to bed like a good girl and we’ll talk in the morning?”

Kyra stopped in the doorway, staring at him as though she couldn’t quite believe he was for real.  “Uh, those guys, Sam and…”

“Dean.”

“Yeah, them.  They said they were hunters, it was their job to go after spirits like the Shining Man.”

“Mmm hm.”

“And Mr Singer;  you said he was a hunter too?”  Crowley made the noise again, not quite so agreeably.  While he appreciated having someone there who had to look up at him, he wished she would do a bit of maturing, the way Amara had.  Perhaps not _quite_ the way Amara had.

“But you don’t look like a hunter.  So how could you stop anyone?” 

Crowley laughed and opened his mouth to tell her:  _I’m the King of Hell, darling._   Right then, he pictured Robert’s face in his mind, and knew, abruptly, that it would be the worst of mistakes, however enjoyable it might be in the moment.  “I’m not, sweetheart.  I’m… I’m Bobby Singer’s boyfriend.”

“Oh.  Okay then.  Will you please tell me when I can talk to him in the morning?”

“I promise, love.  Good night.”  _What’s left of it._

And he went off to find some clean towels to help Robert clean up.

*

Finally, Bobby was lying down again in a clean bed and drinking the glass of water Crowley had firmly given him.   “Somebody should stay with Kyra,”  he fretted.  “She shouldn’t be on her own.”

“She’s fine.  You’ve still got some mess in your beard.”

Bobby gingerly wiped at his beard with a corner of the bedsheet.  “Uh, Crowley,”  he began with unusual care for him, “nobody who’s had Lucifer as a guest in their head is gonna be okay, kid or adult.  Also, nobody whose mom is lying in hospital unable to wake up and with their brain fried to kingdom come is gonna be okay.”  He knew he had gotten louder as he warmed to his theme, but he was beyond caring.  His head started throbbing again, though he was sure there wasn’t anything left in his stomach to come up.  “I know you don’t get this, so do me a huge favour and go wake up Sam or Dean and get one of them to go sit with her.  If they’ve had a few hours, they’ll be able to handle it.”

Crowley blinked in surprise as Bobby ended with a frustrated growl.  “Sooner not get a splash of holy water in my face, love,”  he said, but stepped back when Bobby surged up in the bed.

“And somebody who is bein’ this clueless about a child is not gonna be gettin’ any until his precious demonic hell-realm ices over.  So get out of my way if you’re not gonna help, princess.”

Crowley’s expression was blank, meaning he truly didn’t get it, Bobby knew.  If he had, he’d be pulling all the dramatics he was capable of to indicate his complete hurt and confusion.  Bobby would have said more, but was caught by the heaves, dry retching and grabbing the side of the bed to anchor himself.  His eyes burned as though they were actually catching fire, the vision blurring.  He fell back, trying to control the coughing, furious that he was unable to get to his feet and take care of this problem himself. 

Crowley was no longer in the room anyway, so he was doing _something_.

*

Crowley knocked on Dean’s door.  At first quietly, then louder when he realised that wasn’t going to get him anywhere and then finally sighed and teleported himself inside the room, to the side of the hunter’s bed, clicking on the overhead light with a wave of his hand.  Dean was a sprawled, anonymous mass under the covers and for all Crowley knew, he went to bed with his damned gun, so rather than prod, he got ready to vanish and then announced loudly, “Squirrel!  Time to get up, darling!”

That prompted a twitch and a muttered curse from the depths, followed by Dean’s mussed up hair and then his stubbly face, the green eyes glaring at Crowley.  “What the fuck are you doing in here?”

“Trust me, it wasn’t my idea.  Bobby’s awake, but he’s too unwell to take care of the girl himself, so he, ah, suggested I wake you.”

“Try Sam.  I’m going back to sleep.”

“Dean!  First the girl camped outside Bobby’s door until he woke up and could see her.  She’s now back in her room but Bobby tells me she shouldn’t be left alone…”

Dean stared at him and Crowley wondered just how frantic he sounded.  “Dude, you’re freaking out.”

_Right.  That frantic._

“If I’d just gone to bed with Robert when he asked me, none of this would be happening.”

“I really don’t want to hear about that, Boris.”  Dean sighed and began to push the covers away, then paused to look at him again.  “Clear out of here, Crowley.”

Feeling rather bereft of anywhere to go that he was actually wanted, the demon headed into the bunker’s industrial-sized kitchen.  _Might as well sort something out for Bobby’s breakfast;  he might feel like eating in awhile.  And coffee_.  He already knew the gods didn’t much like him, and after all, if they did, he was hardly doing his job as King of Hell, so it wasn’t truly a surprise, when he entered the kitchen, to find the child Kyra there, investigating one of the fridges.

She jumped back, evidently expecting to be chastised, but Crowley simply joined her to peer into the depths.  “Sam and Dean eat like teenagers,”  he told her, “which means we’re unlikely to find much real food.  If you see milk and/or eggs, pull them out;  I think I’ll try omelettes.”

“You need cheese too.”

“Grab that if you find any.  I’ll be over here beginning the search for something resembling coffee.”

When Dean came in, a few minutes later, dressed and at least partially awake, he found breakfast well on the way, provided by a demon in a black suit and a preteen who didn’t look all that close to emotional collapse to him.  He managed to shut his mouth as he watched the bustling about and apparently amicable conversation between the two.  Crowley was making absolutely no allowance for Kyra’s age or her recent traumas.  He did not, Dean realised, even notice them.  And that was precisely what the situation required.

Crowley turned a moment later and saw him.  “Uh, you want me to do anything?”  Dean asked.

“You can take this tray along to Bobby in a moment.  Is Sam awake?”

“I dunno.”

“Sam’s the big one,”  Crowley added to Kyra.

“You mean the moose?”

“Precisely.  Go knock on his door and say breakfast is ready.  If you hear an answering moan, that means he’s awake.”

Kyra hurried off and Dean choked back a laugh.  “Sam’s going to be pissed you told that kid to call him a moose.”

“I did no such thing.  I merely assured her he was one.  Here you are.”  Dean found a tray containing a plate of omelette in his arms.  “It’s fairly bland so Bobby should be able to eat it.  If he does, I’ll consider allowing coffee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to take things past the cliffhanger I left them at, last chapter. I'm doing NanoWrimo this month, so will be getting back to Best Endeavours after November. If anyone's interested in reading the Nano (g) I'll see about putting it up as an original work on the Archive. So this bit is kind of short. It was very hard to find a place to break it and I want to work some more on what comes after this.


	11. Chapter 11

 

“What’s the matter with you?”  Bobby growled the greeting as he observed Dean’s careful approach with the tray of breakfast in his hands.  “Did you cook that?”

“No, so you’re safe,”  Dean retorted.  “Looks like you’re feeling better, huh?”

“How’s the kid?”

Dean put the tray down on the bedside table and regarded his foster father with something less than affection.  “The kid’s….doing okay.  Shoving the bad stuff into a corner the way we all do, for the moment.  She’s helping Crowley with breakfast.”

“I told him to put you or Sam on to kid watch.”

“Because we’re so awesome at it.”

“At least you get the whole kid-is-not-miniature-adult thing.  I’m not so sure Crowley does.”

Dean shrugged.  “He’s doing fine with his whole delightfully oblivious demonic thing, ordering her around like a master chef with a minion, whatever they call ‘em.  She seems to think he’s fascinating.  Honestly, sometimes I think he and Cas aren’t so different.  But we have to think of somewhere we can take the kid.  Wasn’t that doc who talked to us some kinda family friend, next of kin or some shit like that?”

“Uncle Jeff, who convinced mom to trust the Shining Man,”  Bobby said meaningfully, and saw Dean get it.

“Oh shit.”

“Look, before we get into whatever crap we’re going to get into next, would you please ask Crowley to come and talk to me?  I, uh, wasn’t all that nice before.”

Dean started to grin.  “What did you say to him?  Because he was really shook up when he came to wake me.”

“Uh, quite a lot,”  Bobby confessed.

“You threaten him with no sex ever if he didn’t behave?”

“Just go and ask him, will you!”  Bobby felt as though his face was on fire and it didn’t help that Dean was chortling as he left.

“You did, didn’t you?”

Crowley came in almost at once, looking rather wary.  Bobby regarded him and thought:  _How the fuck can I threaten the king of the demons?  Even if Lucifer’s shaken up his power base, that’s what he is.  He rules untold thousands of those black or red or white eyed bastards.  Why does he care what I think?_

“C’mon,”  he muttered, holding out his arms to Crowley, feeling abruptly sure the demon was going to snap at him, one of his trademark sarcastic zingers.  “I’m sorry.  I was feeling like crap.”  But Crowley moved readily into his embrace as Bobby rested his hands on the demon’s back, kissing his cheek awkwardly and muttering nonsense before he said,  “I’m not gonna, you know, avoid stuff because the boys are there any more.  It’s not fair on you.”

“It’s all right, love,”  Crowley’s voice was muffled against his neck.  “You’re quite right.  I never did understand children even when I was one.  I’m a _demon_ , who on earth expects us to get it?  Amara wasn’t exactly typical.”

“I never met her, but from what I’ve heard, yeah, you’re right.”

“And it’s a good thing you don’t plan to hide our relationship any more.”

“Why’s that?”

“I may have told Kyra that I was your boyfriend.”

Bobby spluttered.  “Uh, again why?”

“It was in the middle of a discussion about the bunker’s security, love, and I was assuring her that all would be well.  I thought you’d prefer I didn’t mention that nothing was going to take me on, since I was the King of Hell.”

”I, uh, I guess I see that.”

“It also has the unusual benefit of being true.  Isn’t it?”  He hesitated and Bobby got the feeling that the demon was actually unsure.  For some reason, that hurt him and he hugged Crowley tighter. “I’d prefer partner,”  he said judiciously, watching that wicked grin light up Crowley’s face.  “The other one sounds like somethin’ college kids call each other.”

“And now, we possibly have more than Lucifer to worry about, or at least, your boys are worrying about it.  The thought that there’s a nucleus of his fans hereabouts.”

“So, Satanists.”

“We need to find out about this Uncle Jeff and the Shining Man,”  Crowley said, ignoring that.  “I admit, I didn’t think Lucifer would have any friends up here to help him.  He’s not the sort who’s good about staying in touch, you know.”

“Crowley, just be careful when you ask Kyra about her mom, okay?”

He wasn’t sure what reaction he’d get, but Crowley just nodded.  Bobby touched the other man’s face, stroking the short beard.  He wasn’t sure when this had happened, when he had begun to feel this strongly about Crowley, enough to get him past the uncertainty of how the boys, how anyone, would regard this.  Crowley was his anchor and his love.  Anything else, they would weather.

“You want me to ask her tomorrow, maybe?”  the King suggested, smirking back at him for a moment before closing his heavy lidded eyes, catlike, to enjoy the caress.

“Yeah,”  Bobby told him, and the grin broadened.  “But we need to do stuff now.  Or I do, at any rate.  I think this is why I was sent back.”

Crowley’s eyes opened; for the moment a very human hazel-green, studying him.  “We talked about this, love, that the angels used you.  And it didn’t work, Lucifer got away, remember.”

“They figured they would use me,’  Bobby said.  “But I think there was a better reason than that. “

“God?  You know better, Robert.”

Hard to focus.  He was bone weary, tired from more than hours awake, and there was so much to be done.  And here with him, King of Hell, bound with him for reasons he still didn’t understand, but what would _he_ say or do, if Bobby disclosed that he had, effectively, warned Lucifer in time for him to escape.

“Do I?”  Bobby whispered to him.  “He’s still there, you know, Crowley, never mind all the crazy goin’s on, there’s still a reason above it all.  I got to believe that.  Why are there even hunters in the world?”

“Something I ask myself nightly….”

“That’s enough, you.”  But his answer was gentle and Crowley only smiled.  “All the beings, the monsters, pagan gods, tricksters….could they come about without something greater?  We don’t really know, do we?  Even you.  You never saw Heaven.”

“Kind of the whole point of being damned, love.”  Crowley’s voice was low and rough and Bobby had to pull away from him with an effort.

“A better reason,”  he repeated firmly.  “Like just maybe I can really help.”

“You don’t have to,”  Bobby muttered.

“I know.  But you’re here and that means I’m here, love.”

“You make it sound so damn easy.  Don’t you have to go re-take Hell?”

“Exactly.  No point if we can’t deal with Lucifer.”

“Crowley, we aren’t gonna be dealing with him, we’re going to sort out some sick nest of Satanists or whatever they think they are.”  Bobby sighed.  “Never mind.  I’m gonna get dressed and back into things before the rest of you decide to order me another wheelchair and a goddamned bathrobe.”

*

The boys were in what they called the War Room; a space filled with junk from the 1950s or thereabouts, Bobby thought, though he did like the big table with the map of the world inscribed in it.  A good way for the Men of Letters to remember their raison d’etre.  Kyra was wandering around examining things and Sam was tracking her, trying – and failing – to stop her touching things, mostly because he was hanging back doing his best not to scare her.  Bobby could see Kyra wasn’t even noticing him.  He hadn’t thought it was a good idea to talk to the kid in here;  better around a kitchen table with a mug of hot chocolate in her hands, surely, but she seemed intrigued by the place.

Dean, sprawled in a chair, noticed them first when they came in.  He looked relieved, Bobby thought, even in regards to Crowley, who nodded to him.  “I’ve been watching Sam babysit,”  Dean said.  “It’s so freaking cute.”

“Is there anything on the news about a missing child from that town?”  Bobby asked pointedly.

“Not that I saw.  Sam?”

“No,”  Sam answered, abandoning his herding attempts and coming over to them.  “I checked their local news;  still nothing.  Nothing about Chryseis either, so I guess she’s still, you know…”  he lowered his voice.

“She’s not alive,”  Bobby murmured softly so that Kyra should not hear, and Crowley shook his head.  The girl was coming over to them, glancing from one to another, and slid into a seat next to Crowley, which made Bobby want to grin, at the same time as it made him wary.

“Those people said my mom’s dead,”  she said bluntly, the words all the more shocking when they were said in a young girl’s voice.  “The ones like the Shining Man.”

“Angels,”  Crowley said.  “Give them their name;  they’re angels.”

Bobby and the Winchesters braced for an emotional storm, but Kyra seemed oddly comforted by Crowley’s bluntness.  “I thought angels were supposed to help us,”  she said.

“Only in very old stories written by people who didn’t have a a clue,”  Crowley told her.

“But they’re in the Bible.”

“Exactly.”

She looked from him to the others, thinking it over.  “How come you know about angels and – and things?”  she asked, seeming to aim the question at all of them.

“How does your not-an-uncle Jeff know about things like the Shining Man?”  Crowley asked back.  _Not a bad segue,_   Bobby thought, but he was still scared the girl was going to cry.  She _should_ be crying, demanding to go home, not being this calm.  She had to know what her face looked like, hell, she had to _feel_ like crap.  According to Sam, anyway, and he ought to know. 

“I don’t know,”  Kyra said.

“You feeling okay, darlin’?”  Bobby asked worriedly.  She nodded, but without conviction.  He knew from Sam that people _could_ survive possession by Lucifer, but that the scars were more than physical.  This girl was far weaker than Sam, because of her age and the fact that she wasn’t the chosen and prepared vessel.  “You know that we’ll look after you, right?  We’ll see you get to someone who can take care of you properly, maybe a good friend of your mom?”

“She only knows Uncle Jeff and the people who used to come around with him,”  Crowley murmured, a low rasp of a voice.

“How about back in…where was it…Kansas City?”  Bobby said.

Kyra shook her head, very definitely, looking scared.

“How about Jody?”  Sam suggested.

“Huh?”  Bobby asked.

“We didn’t have time to tell you absolutely everything about the last four years,”  Dean told him.  “The short form is Jody’s caring for two teenaged girls.  One escaped from a nest of vampires and one’s the daughter of Castiel’s vessel, Jimmy Novak.”  His eyes widened as he realised his complete brain holiday.

“Vampires?”  Kyra echoed.

“Who absolutely are nowhere near here,”  Bobby said firmly.  “Right, Dean?”

“Uh, yeah.  That was years ago.”

“I really don’t think Jody wants another kid,”  Dean said to Sam.  “Anyway, what happens when this Jeff dude contests and says we ran off with his friend’s kid and he’s next of kin blah blah.  Because it could be, you know, true?”   He looked at Crowley.  “Do you think you could…”

Crowley raised a hand, sighing theatrically.  “Go find out what this Jeff character is into?  Because I have absolutely nothing else to do with my time and owe you two _so_ much.”

“Pretty much,”  Dean said, shrugging.  He and Crowley locked gazes for a moment.  Bobby watched with interest, noting the moment when Dean gave a disarming grin and Crowley just sighed again and relaxed, his body language indicating that he would give Dean what he asked for.  Not hostile, not exactly friends.  Bobby wasn’t sure just what he would call the relationship between those two.  Acceptance, maybe, understanding that they had been through too much, to simply discard one another.  He wasn’t sure what Sam thought.

“Fine, fine, I suppose it’s the only way to make sure you two don’t mess things up,”  Crowley said.  “I’ll go spy on the good doctor and find out if he’s been Lucifer’s penpal or some such.  Kyra, can you tell us any more about your uncle?  Anything at all?”

She hesitated and Bobby came to the rescue, turning to Sam and Dean.  “Why don’t you two go get your shit together?  You’re gonna need to head out once Crowley gets you intel.”

Dean started to say something, but Sam picked up on Bobby’s intent and shepherded his brother out of the room.  “I can go make us a snack if you want to talk to just Crowley,”  Bobby offered, not sure whether she did or not.  Nor did Crowley, who shot Bobby a “what-the-hell?” look.  It wasn’t far past breakfast, but kids were always hungry, weren’t they?  Kyra nodded and Bobby got up, patting Crowley on the shoulder as he passed him.

“Don’t leave me,”  Crowley murmured.

“Man up.”

Once the room was cleared, Crowley looked back at the girl, reminding himself not to tap the table;  it made him look nervous.  “Anything at all,”  he repeated quietly.  “Jeff knew about Lucifer – the Shining Man – before he possessed your mother, didn’t he?”

“What’s that?”

“Possession?”  She nodded again.  “Ah.”  Crowley passed a hand through his hair, wishing Bobby had stayed.  He might have to out himself, and if the child started screaming, Squirrel and Moose were most definitely going to assume the worst.  “Answer my question first.”

“Yeah,”  said Kyra.  “Uncle Jeff had this room in his house where they prayed to the Shining Man.  My mom used to go but she stopped.”

Crowley had never prayed, but he considered starting at that moment.  Getting information without torture was definitely a laborious process.  From what he’d seen of children, they gabbled interminably and mindlessly for the most part.  God knows, his own son hadn’t behaved like a rational human being for any of the time Crowley had been around him!  Why did he have to get the one child who just stared at him as though he knew the answers already?  _That’s not the truth,_ he reminded himself.  _You have to find the correct question and none of us have._

“Jeff and his friends….prayed to Lucifer?”

Another nod.

“How long have they been doing that?”

“I don’t know.  As long as we’ve been in Winterridge.”

“How long was that?”

“About a year, I think.”

 _Which roughly correlates to the amount of time in which Luci has been able to chat to Sam Winchester.  Interesting._   _I never thought about whether he might have been able to influence other people._

“Why did you come to Winterridge?”  he asked abruptly.  At this ordinary seeming question, Kyra looked away and when she spoke, her voice was shaky.

“My mom said it was because my dad was looking for us.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t like to lose, my mom said.  He thought we belonged to him.  And he wanted to get my mom for telling the police on him.”

“Did he….do something the police wouldn’t like?”

She nodded.  Crowley took a breath, counting to ten in Enochian.  “Kyra.  We aren’t his friends.  If we’re going to help you, you’ve got to use a few more words.  Was your unlamented father a drug dealer?”

“Yeah.”

“See, that’s not so hard?  What about your mom?”  That was a guess, but Kyra nodded.

“She stopped using and she wanted to get away, get you away?  Why did she come to a place where her husband’s old college buddy lived?”  He knew that wasn’t right, but he wanted to see whether Kyra would correct him.

“He wasn’t, he just knew my mom.”

“Did she know what he did for kicks?”  Another wide eyed pause.  “Did she know about the Shining Man before she came to Winterridge?”

“I don’t know.  She didn’t say anything to me.  Just after we moved to Winterridge, she would go over to Uncle Jeff’s place a lot and I had to stay home.”

“Did Jeff ask her to bring you here?”

“I don’t know.  Mom just – we just left one night in a hurry and Mom told me about Winterridge and Uncle Jeff on the way.”

*

“We can’t leave that kid alone with Crowley!”  Sam’s voice was low but warning, just through the doorway to the kitchen where he and Dean had followed Bobby.  “I thought you were gonna stay in there, till I heard you clattering in here.”

“He’s not going to harm her,”  Bobby said, setting out mugs.

“How the fuck do you know?  Bobby, he’ll do what you want, some of the time, because he’s – I don’t believe I’m going to say this - in love with you.  If he’s not in love with somebody, which means just about anyone else, he doesn’t give a shit about them, kid or adult.  You know that’s true.”

“He knows,”  Bobby said, gritting his teeth at the eye roll from Sam as he said the “l” word.  He wondered when the Winchesters would make it through adolescence.  He paused to count to five before continuing.  “He knows that I’ll be royally pissed if he even scares that child, if that’s what’s bugging you.  Maybe that matters, maybe it don’t..  Also they’re one doorway away.  Whether I’m in the room or in here won’t make a fucking bit of difference to what he can do.”

“Uh, inside voices,”  Dean suggested.  “You might also want to tone down the language.”  Two annoyed stares focused on him and Dean smiled disarmingly.  “Also, while you’re yelling, I can’t hear what they’re saying.”

*

Crowley and Kyra went quiet as the voices in the kitchen rose.  “Why are they so mad about you talking to me?”  Kyra asked.  She touched her cheek and winced.  “Will I get better?  I look horrible and I feel too hot.  My head hurts.”

Crowley leaned forward to examine the Lucifer-damage for himself.  “If it helps, I’ve seen a lot worse,”  he said.  “Most people don’t survive being taken over by, ah, the Shining Man.”

“Like my mom?”

“Well, yes.”

Again Kyra listened, her face as near expressionless as Crowley had seen a human get.  “They’re really scared,”  she said.  “What can you do that they’re scared of?”

“I want Bobby back in here before I answer that.  If you cry, they’ll shishkebab me.”

“I can’t cry yet.”

“That’s good – ah, why?”

“Because I need to get him.”

“Uncle Jeff?”

“Him, yeah, but I want to get the Shining Man – what did you say his name was?”

“Lucifer.”

“That’s the _devil._ ”

“Yes,” said Crowley.  He stood and walked towards the kitchen, not surprised to find Dean, Sam and Bobby poised just inside the doorway.  “Bobby, come back in here, please.”

Bobby obeyed, giving Crowley a curious look as he settled himself beside the demon at the table, across from Kyra.  “Sorry about the shouting, darlin’,”  he muttered to her.  “Some people need to grow up a bit.”  That made her smile, just a bit, but there, to think of Sam Winchester growing up even more.  “What is it Crowley needs help with now?”

He got the full “the-King-is-not-impressed” glare for that, but Crowley shrugged.  “You and Sam have partway outed me, love.  Want to finish the job?”

“You mean….”

“I shouldn’t be here while you…”

“Sit,”  Bobby ordered, fixing Crowley with a glare of his own.  “If you want to be here, be a part of things, you don’t disappear.”  He gave the girl a wry look.  “And I mean disappear.  What Crowley here is dancing around is that he’s not human.  He’s not gonna hurt you and he’s no friend of your Shining Man.  In fact, he’s been Lucifer’s jailer for a long time.”  Still she looked, with eyes far older than her age.  “He’s the King of Hell,”  Bobby finished.

“He’s a devil?”

Crowley passed his hand over his eyes.

“He’s a demon,”  Bobby said soberly.  “He used to be a person.  Then he died and his, uh, soul went to another place.  He hadn’t been a good man in his life, so that place wasn’t good either.  We call it Hell.  It’s had a host of names and nobody’s sure what it is or how it is, not even the souls inside it.  They treat those souls pretty bad in there, and some of them get new bodies, that they call vessels.”  He was _not_ teaching her the word “meatsuit” or telling her about demonic torture.  “Some of ‘em learn magic, depending on what job they have.  Most of ‘em never learn much.  Only a few ever get powerful enough to rule and Crowley’s one of ‘em.  He was a Crossroads demon, and they’re the ones who come to people and try and tempt ‘em to make deals, to sell their souls.  You might’ve read stories about that or seen shows on television, though you’re a mite young for most of those movies.”

Kyra looked from him to Crowley and back again.  “Is that how you met?” she asked.

Crowley barked a laugh and Bobby reddened, hoping she didn’t see.  “Uh, kinda,”  he began, hoping she would let it go at that.  Where were Sam and Dean when he needed them to carry on and provide a distraction?  “But look, we’re gonna help you here, Kyra, but we need you to help too.  Do you think you can draw a sketch of Dr…your Uncle Jeff’s house?  Kind of a map of where it is, street names and stuff if you can remember them?”  She nodded.  As though cued, Sam and Dean came back in and Bobby muttered to Sam about butcher’s paper and some pens.

Crowley stood to get a better look, hands in his pockets.  “I can get in there without all that,”  he muttered.

“It’ll help the rest of us,”  Bobby retorted.

“I’m pretty sure Dean expects me to go in on my lonesome.”

“No,”  Bobby growled, so definitely that Crowley stopped his teasing, eyes widening a little in surprise.  “You’re gonna have backup, like it or not, and if things go to h – screw up like they usually do, we’ll have to come in and save your ass.  Kyra, ignore him.”

“Ignore him too,”  Sam added.  “Language, Bobby.”

“I was watchin’ my damn language!”

Kyra was visibly trying not to giggle as she sketched a reasonable mud map and answered questions about the house layout, as well as she could, though it seemed she had only been in the house a handful of times.  Bobby called a halt about half an hour later and made Kyra some lunch before taking her back to the room they had given her and telling her to take a nap.  He didn’t like the glassy-eyed look she had and Crowley had passed on to him what Kyra had said about feeling ill.

The old hunter glanced around the room where they had put Kyra.  It was like the rest of the bunker; utilitarian to a fault, the furniture a mixup of stuff from decades ago, faintly dusty, the bed awkwardly made by Sam or Dean and covered with an army blanket.  A flashlight lay on a small table near the bed in lieu of a lamp.  It wasn’t a comfortable or a comforting room for a child or anyone else, for that matter.

Crowley pushed past him, a glass of milk in his hand, which he busily set down on the table.  “There you are.  Room service from a king!”

Kyra smiled at the small joke;  more of a smile than she had given anyone else.  “Are you really a king?”

“Would I lie?  No, don’t answer that.”  Crowley paused as Bobby watched, intrigued to find out what he would say.  “Yes, sweetheart.  A King of Hell doesn’t get chosen, he fights his way to that position by being smarter than anyone else.  And a number of other qualities which Bobby here probably hopes I won’t explain.  Which I won’t.  You get some rest and we will take care of things.”

He bustled out and Bobby rubbed his eyes.  Kyra looked after Crowley as though she was sorry he had gone.  “I like him,”  she murmured, closing her eyes.

“I like him too, darlin’.  You do as he said and get some rest, so you’ll feel better.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t generally hold with the idea of more-tags-than-story, trigger warnings and the like, but with this chapter I make the exception. There are some very dark and disturbing ideas in here – well, they bother me and I came up with them – which is why I’ve changed the rating to Mature. I will try to make it so that anyone who wants to *can* skip this chapter and still follow what’s going on. They involve paedophilia and just what someone who could make a deal with a demon might want. So this chapter will be very short, with another to follow soon.
> 
> Er - Merry Christmas? As my King would say, "If that's your thing!"
> 
> **********************************************************************

 

Bobby had been asleep when the heavy weight fell on his chest.  Startled awake, his mind directed his hand to reach for the shotgun, even as the unique scent of sulphur and cologne identified his assailant.

“Get the fuck off me – geez, Crowley!”

“Not what you said last night,” the muffled voice replied, but Crowley rolled to the side of him and steadied himself with a hand on Bobby’s chest.   “Were you really expecting anyone else, darling?”

“Not fallin’ on me without warning,”  Bobby muttered. “It’s like a damn cave in this bunker.”  He saw a flame blink into existence in in midair, close to the ceiling.  “Thanks.”  He slid an arm around Crowley’s shoulder, urging him down beside him.  “You all right?”

“Yes, love.”  There was a note of surprise in the demon’s voice that he even asked, and that realisation made Bobby wrap his other arm around his body and hug him hard, probably further perplexing Crowley. “I’m fine.  Really.”

“Get your damn overcoat off then.”  Bobby clumsily started to help, then realised that although he had touched the woollen cloth of Crowley’s expensive coat, the coat – and the rest of Crowley’s suit – was now gone, and it was Crowley’s bare skin his hand rested on.  He pulled the covers up around the demon; an urge of protectiveness he felt sure Crowley would laugh at if he realised.  _What the hell could he see that would still bother him?_   Bobby asked himself. “There any reason we need to get movin’ in a hurry?”

“No.”  Crowley sounded weary as he followed Bobby’s directions.  No more teasing, no overtures.  “Not any more.”

“What the fuck happened?”

*

He had travelled to Winterridge, appearing outside the medical centre, this being the destination he knew best, there to pick up Watkins’ trail.  By night, the little town no longer appeared quiet and deserted.  It radiated fear, a very specific fear which made the demon grimace as he sensed it, looking about to be sure none of his kind were nearby. 

He shifted again, to the house where the doctor was.  No need for Sam and Dean or anyone else to know just how simple it was for a demon to track someone on this dimension.  A human someone, anyway, particularly if they were already on the books.

Jeffrey Andrew Watkins had been taken seven years ago.  Seven of his ten.  Unlike many bought souls, he hadn’t done the deal for wealth or fame or privilege.  Crowley grimaced to himself as he looked at the house, and zapped inside to the room he wanted.  Some humans could still sicken a demon.

Before him were two beings; Dr Watkins himself and an apparent child, a girl of around ten or eleven years old.  Both were naked on the double bed. Crowley wrapped himself in shadows and watched.  In a moment the stench that was Lucifer reached him, emanating from the child in voice and movement and the very air around her.  She was paler than Kyra, but had hair in a similar dark bush around her head.  She stood, hands at her sides, apparently calm, though the mottled damage caused by Lucifer’s occupation was already apparent on her face and body.  The man lounged on his bed.

“No one in town will miss this one,”  Lucifer was saying in a bored tone.  “I’ve seen to the family that were travelling with it and the police haven’t realised they’re one short yet.  But it’s not going to last too long, so make the most.  I’ll have to move on if you can’t retrieve yours.  Nice job with the strengthening spell, by the way.”

“I learned from the master, didn’t I?”

The child’s answering voice, in a high chuckle, was obscene beyond most things Crowley knew.  “Indeed.  But not well enough to repeat the process, for my requirements.”

“I could gather the coven tonight….”

“Not….enough….time, Jeffrey!  I’ve told you where yours has scuttled off to.  Time you played the outraged guardian and got her back.  I need whatever she’s learned and I want to test whether it’s possible to reoccupy….”

“You claim you can do anything,”  the human protested.  “Why don’t you crack that damn bunker and pull her out?”

“I owe a debt,”  Lucifer snapped.  “I don’t hunt there….not since He was there….and not since Singer warned me.”

“Yeah, yeah, God walked the earth.”

An invisible blow hammered into Watkins’ face and threw him backwards, off the unmade bed and on to the floor with enough force to make him cry out.  Crawling up to hands and knees, the doctor murmured a faint apology.

“I should think so,”  Lucifer said, in the shrill voice of the child.  The tone dropped, acquired a sly sweetness to it.  “Now come here and make it up to me.”

All Crowley’s instincts said to zap out of there.  He might be a powerful demon, but Lucifer was more than his equal and had proved it.  A direct fight would end in Crowley’s permanent demise.  He watched the naked man crawl slowly towards the child, up on to the bed, hand by hand, as Lucifer turned the child’s body to greet him.  So, he could not attack Lucifer.  There was another option besides flight, though….

He uncloaked himself, while Lucifer’s attention remained on his toy and Watkins was equally focused.  The human thought he was so bloody clever, when in essence his evil was simply selfish and banal.  He had wanted to combine his two unspeakable pleasures; black magic and children.  He had asked that demons bring such children to him, and also instruct him in magic, which the crossroads demon had probably agreed to quite easily.  It gave demons a chance to play on the surface and to show how clever they were, all at once.

It put Jeff Watkins on the ‘to watch’ register;  a human with tremendous potential for being twisted and tortured into a demon himself, once his deal came due in three years time.  He wasn’t going to find that as much fun as he thought it would be _.  Especially_ , Crowley thought savagely, _since the due date has just been fucking well moved up_!

“Hello, darling,”  he said, as he placed his hands on Watkins’ neck and had just enough time to feel the man’s shiver of shock before he used his demonic strength to twist and break.  He let the head fall, already teleporting away as it fell to the sheets.


	13. Chapter 13

“Shit,”  Bobby Singer mumbled, mostly to himself, as Crowley finished his unsavoury story of how Dr Watkins had met his end.  Lucifer taking children as hosts; that was only what you expected of the fallen angel, Father of Demons, but somehow, that Watkins had used his own deal with Hell to supply his own perversions, that could still shock him.

“So, uh, how do you think Lucifer found the guy?  He was still in the Cage when Watkins made his deal.”

“I’m guessing the Crossroads demon concerned was one of Luci’s minions,”  Crowley said.  “I’ll check up on that as soon as I have an opportunity.”  He stopped for a moment as his swift mind processed things and added, “He would have had several of the more weak-minded, which is most of them.  Probably Lucifer was helping Watkins’ deal along.  Creating his own black magician would be useful to him when – it was always when, not if – he was freed.”

“You said he mentioned a coven.”

“Yes.  I’ll take care of those, or Sam and Dean can clean them up.  They’re probably not much to worry about yet.  Black magicians and witches aren’t fond of competition; he won’t have let them become as powerful as he was.”

“What about the child Lucifer was possessing?”

“Well, he said he would have to move on from that meatsuit soon.”

“So she could still be alive..”  Bobby started up from the bed, already looking for his clothes, then found himself immobilised.  “Let me go, damn you!”

“Robert!  Does the word “bait” mean anything to you?”

“She’s a child…”

“So?  What’s especially magical about being a child that means you’re before everyone else?”  The demon’s tone was almost bored.  “Kyra is alive because good old Dr Watkins, family friend, was practising demonic magic to keep a human host going longer, even when possessed by a fallen archangel.  This latest one hasn’t been modified.  She’s likely dead, or if not, is beyond help.  I prevented this latest child from being raped by Watkins, who is now enjoying the hospitality of Hell.  Let that be enough.  If you go in now, well, by the time you reach Winterridge, there’s a good chance some cop investigating the bloody murder of a family of tourists will have called on Dr Watkins, head of the local medical centre.  Don’t you think?”

“Lucifer lied to him, didn’t he?”  Bobby murmured, finding that he could move again.  He sat up more slowly, watching Crowley, who lay on his side, looking back.  “Sayin’ he had plenty of time, nobody would come lookin’.”

“And that surprises you?”

“No.  Except that Watkins fell for it.  He couldn’t do anythin’ more that Lucifer needs and he’d have to know that.”

Bobby paused and then said it.

“I let him go.”

Crowley was still lying in that lazy position, but red flames flickered in his eyes as he asked, “How’s that, love?”

Bobby looked back at him, aware of a sudden, tense flaring of emotions.  Part of him was looking at this man in bed beside him, part of him flashing back to images of Karen, who had loved him but certainly had had differences of opinion with him.  She had wanted children, as he had not, and he had never had a chance to make his peace with her over that.  _Never found her in Heaven, and why the fuck did I never question that?  Guess she wasn’t human, when she died the second time.  Did their damn rigid rules bar her?  They broke them to send me back when it suited them and then they blocked her from my memories._

There was simultaneously a cold feeling in his gut, a sense that he was in immediate personal peril a lot greater than he had believed.  That he really had no good idea of what – and whom – he was playing with here.  _I’m adrift_ , Bobby Singer thought, _and I’ve got no one but him now..  If I don’t answer him, I’m sayin’ I don’t trust him.  That I’m scared of him in my gut, the way I would be of any monster.  If I_ do, _I’m goin’ into territory no one ever has.  The demons ain’t scared of Crowley for nothing….But what do I have if not him?  I’m dead to this world now._

“Robert, what’s wrong?”  Crowley’s voice was still quiet, his expression human-puzzled as he raised himself up on his elbow.

Bobby swallowed, found dryness in his throat.  He reached over to the bedside table where he’d placed his old cap, took it in his hands, while Crowley smiled to see the gesture.  “I’m gonna tell you something you won’t like,”  he said.  “When Lucifer took me away, back to that field I….returned to, I could feel the angels on their way, like a portal was bein’ opened all around us, tryin’ to tear out my guts.  And I warned him.”

“How?”  Nothing in that tone, but the demon’s face had gone blank of all expression.

“I said “they’re comin’ and that he’d better run.  He jumped out of the vessel and left her.  That’s how come Kyra’s still alive.  I wasn’t gonna give anyone to the angels, not even him.”  He faced Crowley squarely.  “I’m why he was able to take that other girl and give her to his minion.”

That got him a long, level stare from those green-hazel eyes.  Bobby could understand, then, why Crowley was so feared by the demons.  He was powerful, yes, but the thing was, Bobby had absolutely no clue what he was thinking.

“I keep reminding you that I’m a demon, Robert,” said that rasping, still intriguingly accented voice.  “I am – present chaos notwithstanding – the freaking _King of Hell_.  Hearing that you’re responsible for deaths is not exactly shocking to me.  That you’d include Lucifer in any grouping of mercy, well, for that I’m gobsmacked.  That you clearly feel I would, well, do the demonic thing as far as you’re concerned, well, that shows you’re out of your bleeding mind.”

Then he dropped the mask.  That was as near as Bobby could come to what he was seeing, the sudden stricken expression as Crowley stopped being King of Hell and showed Bobby his nakedness, in the mental as well as the physical sense. 

“Of course, being with me _proves_ you’re out of your mind, Robert.”

“Damn it, that’s not true,”  Bobby growled, reaching for him and finding Crowley moving willingly into his arms.  “And it’s not _mercy_.  I wasn’t exactly thinkin’ clearly and I didn’t want to do those feathered bastards any favours.  Even that.”

“Now, that’s the Robert I know and love.”  Crowley was almost purring in his ear.  “But try to think clearly next time, darling.  I don’t like those upstairs any more than you do, but having Lucifer behind bars would suit me, whoever’s bars they are.  Heaven has some good solid jail cells, you know.”

“That don’t surprise me.”   Bobby kissed his cheek, trying not to yawn as he did so.    “Can I suggest one more thing to you and you not yell the place down?”

“Mmm?”

“Don’t go back to Hell.”

“What the unholy fuck?”

“I did say;   _not_ yell the place down.”

“You caught me by surprise, darling.”  Crowley’s hands stroked Bobby’s broad back, as far down as he could reach.  He moved position against Bobby, who was now having some problem focusing.  “I can’t stay topside forever, you know.  As soon as we bottle Lucifer, I have some consciousness-raising to do among the rank and file below…”

“You could have a second chance, same as me,”  Bobby said doggedly, letting Crowley push him back so that he was lying on his back, the demon climbing on top of him and resting his face against Bobby’s chest.  “I think we can work out a proper cure now, given what we know now.  You’re witchborn – sorry, but you are.  You know magic and with the general knowledge you’ve got after four fucking centuries, no way would you be helpless.  And I….”  Bobby ran out of steam and confidence and just sighed, embracing Crowley against him. 

There was a long, long silence in the shadows, while the red firelight spell glowed above their heads.  Bobby listened, but there was no sound elsewhere in the bunker.  Crowley lay against him, bare skin against bare skin and as the demon shifted slightly, Bobby felt the other’s erection against his own and gasped softly.  _Centuries to hone certain skills,_   he thought.

“Tell me why, love.”

“I don’t have that long, even if nothin’ kills me this time,”  Bobby said against his neck.  “I don’t know where I’ll go, back upstairs or to….you know.  But you can’t protect a single soul in Hell, can you, not when things are this crazy.  And they might get crazy again.  I know I’m not makin’ sense, but I figure I’m gonna lose you.  I just thought if we’re together, if we’re the same, then chances are….you could be with me, Crowley.”

Long, long silence then, during which Bobby closed his eyes, so sharply aware of the body against him that there seemed to be nothing else.  Then Crowley sighed, a sharp intake of breath, and rolled off him.  Bobby made a protesting growl and reached for his shoulder, but Crowley’s hand on his stayed him.

“I don’t remember, Robert.”

“Wasn’t askin’ you to…”

“I don’t remember being _human._   How well do you even remember your own childhood, beyond scattered episodes?”

“My childhood was….”

“Hell?  So was mine.  Rowena made certain of that.”  His voice was soft, distant.  “But I can’t remember the person I was, before the demon, Bobby.  It wasn’t _me_.  Oh sure, I toss off names and events, like being abandoned when I was eight, growing up in workhouses, a total drunken loser and tosser.  That’s what being human was for me.  As you said, four centuries or thereabouts as a demon against a few decades of “humanity.”  Humans never did me any favours, love, not when I was one.  If you ask me, humanity is much overrated.”

Bobby stared at him, unable to think of a comeback for that.  Crowley looked at him for a moment, then raised his voice again.  “So you think you can only be with me if I’m human?  Or was that your way of saying you’ve had enough of fucking a demon?”

“Crowley!”  Bobby growled.  “You mind yelling a bit louder?  Maybe you didn’t quite wake Sam and Dean up with that?  I thought you were gonna kick me to the kerb when I told you I warned Lucifer.  I just….I wanted to keep you, is all.  Hell, I don’t know what I’m thinkin’ any more.  The angels got what they wanted; even if they don’t have Lucifer yet, they know what he’s been doin’.  Like I told you, I’m an official dead man – and not to the authorities, I couldn’t give a shit about that.  To my friends.  All I’ve got is the boys, who aren’t sure about me now…and you.  Least I thought I had you.”

“You do, love.  But you’ve also got the King of Hell.  Come on, you know we’d get bored if we had safe, ordinary lives.”

“How do you know?”  Bobby grumbled.

“Hm.  You may have a point there.”  Crowley’s voice was quiet, with a hint of snark, so that Bobby had almost no warning when the demon dropped back into the bed and hugged him tightly, pressing his face against Bobby’s neck.  Bobby wrapped his arms back around him and just held him, for a long, long moment. 

“We need to get out of here, back to the cabin,”  he murmured at last.  “Not _now_ , mind!  I’m not sure I left any clothes there.  But soon.  This damn hunt for Lucifer won’t be over any time soon, and I got to clear my head.  Only this time I’m not goin’ anywhere without you.  You got that?  Whatever you need to do, whatever damn hell you got to raise, you come back to me, understand?”

“Perfectly, darling.”  Crowley’s voice was a bit muffled, since he didn’t move away from Bobby to speak  “So, do you think we might have sex now?”

*

Bobby was still sleeping when Crowley carefully extricated himself from the bed and – after a quick demonic spruce up – made his way to the bunker kitchen.  He’d make Bobby some coffee, he decided, after he got some for himself.  Caffeine was one addiction he thoroughly approved of.

He half thought Kyra might be lurking again, but on inspection, no child was evident.  There was a Dean Winchester, sitting at the table with a mug of coffee and no apparent occupation beyond drinking it.  “Heard you come back,”  Dean offered, in lieu of a “good morning.”  “Well, heard you _after_ you got back.  You and Bobby can sure yell.”

“You, sir, are not a gentleman,”  the demon retorted smugly and was gratified to see Dean’s look of embarrassment.

“Not _that_.  I didn’t even know you, you know….you were arguing about some shit.  Things, uh, things okay?”

Crowley studied him.  Oddly enough, Dean seemed to be concerned.  Even if it was mainly for Bobby’s welfare, the demon decided he’d take it.  “Yes,”  he said.  “I’ve dealt with Dr Watkins, by the way.”

“He’s dead?”

“That’s what “dealt with” means in this context.  I would have disposed of him properly, but I had to leave in a hurry as, surprise surprise, I didn’t feel exactly up to taking on Lucifer by myself.  So the body will be found.”

“Lucifer was there?”

“In a new and very temporary meatsuit, yes.”

Dean glanced at him, picking up the snap of anger under the satisfaction of a job done, but something warned him not to pursue the topic.  “Coffee’s on, anyway,”  he offered.

“Did you make it?”

“C’mon, I can make coffee.  I promise you, Bobby never complained about it.”

Crowley raised his brows slightly, then nodded, conceding the point.  He found two mugs and was filling them when there was a deep yawn from the doorway and Bobby himself came in, ready to face the world in his usual jeans, t shirt and trucker cap.  “I was about to bring you coffee,”  Crowley complained, as though he had personally collected and ground the beans himself.

“And your point?”  Bobby snagged one of the mugs from his hand, sipped and grimaced.  “Shit, who made this?”

“You said…”  Crowley accused Dean.  “….that Bobby never complained about it.”

“No, because Sam always made the coffee when we were at Bobby’s.”

Bobby made a gruff chuckling sound, took the other mug from Crowley too and poured the contents of both down the sink before he set about making another pot.  “Where’s Kyra got to?”  he asked. 

“Still in her room, I think.”

“She need to be here for Crowley debriefing us?”

 _Is that what I’m going to do?_   The King regarded Bobby’s broad back fondly as he sat at the table, on the other side from Dean.  The Winchesters seemed to be acting friendly, but that didn’t mean one took chances with one’s precious meatsuit around them.  Sam came in, his hair wet from showering, and exchanged remarks with his brother and Bobby which Crowley registered but did not pay particular attention to.  He had the feeling of something changing; a phase of his long afterlife ending and he wasn’t sure he completely understood.

When the coffee was made, Bobby passed him one and then sat next to him, resting an arm on the back of Crowley’s chair.  The demon sat back slowly.  Bobby kept his arm there and rested his hand on Crowley’s shoulder.  For a wonder, neither Winchester commented or exploded at the sight and Crowley gradually settled, aware of a sensation he remembered very distantly, but certainly not throughout most of his time as a demon.

Happiness.

He savoured the feeling for as long as he could, until Sam started fidgeting and Dean let out a small, impatient sigh. “Well, come on, Crowley, since you didn’t bother to actually wait for your backup, are you going to tell us what you found out?”

“Turns out Dr Watkins was on the rolls,”  Crowley said lightly.  “Thought he might be, of course.  He fitted the bill;  made a deal with the Evil One and all that…”

“You mean he made a deal with a crossroads demon?”  Sam asked.

Crowley nodded.  “Seven years ago.”

“How’d you check?  Thought they were lying in wait for you in Hell.”

“Hell is….complicated,”  Crowley said, remembering when he’d last said those words to Dean.  “And so is my access to its memories.  Trust me, I know he was one of ours.  Is one of ours.”  He smiled and that expression made Sam and Dean hesitate for a moment. “I found Lucifer there with him, in a new host, playing games with the good doctor.”

“What sort of games?  Stop screwing around, Crowley.”

Crowley’s eyes flickered red.  “And stop speaking to me as though you have any right to give me orders, Dean.”

“You want me to tell ‘em?”  Bobby asked Crowley.

“He already told you?”  Dean demanded.  Crowley waved weary permission at Bobby, who took up the story, glaring at Dean and Sam impartially.

“Lucifer took another kid, around Kyra’s age, because that’s what Watkins liked.  Demons in child meatsuits, playin’ sex games.  He could have had damn near anythin’, for a soul selling, and that’s what he wanted.  Crowley broke Watkins’ neck and got clear of there before Lucifer worked out what was goin’ on.”

“So he’s still there?”  Sam started to get up but Bobby, feeling a thousand years old, motioned for him to sit back down.

“I doubt it, Sam.  He might not have realised it was Crowley, but he knows a demon spied on him.  He’s in the wind.”

“Thanks, love, but Lucifer doesn’t have to look at me to identify me, or any demon,”  Crowley murmured.  “Not that it makes any difference; I was definitely already at the top of his to do list.”  He gently moved Bobby’s hand from his shoulder so he could get to his feet, and cast an indifferent glance over towards the Winchesters.  “If you were thinking of sending young Kyra off to stay with the sheriff, or whoever else, you might rethink it.  Her life won’t be worth a handful of small flat rocks if she’s not under hunter protection.”

“But Lucifer’s going to be planning his next move,”  Dean reasoned.  “Trying to find some host that will be useful to him, maybe somebody rich, powerful…”

“And a side detour would be the matter of a moment,”  Crowley said, giving him his best bored look.  “Honestly, sometimes one would think you two had never met a demon - well, proto-demon - in your lives.”  He strolled out of the war room as though, Bobby thought, he had been resident in the bunker for years.  For his part, he was suddenly the focus of Sam and Dean’s eyes.

“What he said,”  Bobby growled at them, got up and went out after Crowley.  Halfway to the room, he changed his mind and turned to go along the passage leading to the underground car park.  If he and Crowley did take off on their own Lucifer hunt, and he was beginning to think that was the only way to maintain his sanity, he’d want to be sure he had a usable vehicle, since the truck was way over at the cabin.  No way was he getting into somewhere from where demon transport was the only way out.


	14. Chapter 14

Crowley turned from closing the door and surveyed the person currently sitting crosslegged on the bed.  Kyra was wearing too-large sweats in pale yellow cotton, incongruously depicting pink elephants and blue….rhinoceros?  Somebody clearly without any sense of colour or fashion had selected the outfit, he mused; it made her coffee-and-cream skin look sallow.  Well, could have been either Winchester.  Or Robert.  Much though he loved Robert; he wouldn’t have let him pick out the cage furnishings for his hamster.

“Breakfast is happening,”  he offered pointedly, waving a hand in that direction.  “I believe the grownup conversation has finished;  at least, I’m sure that’s what Sam and Dean call it.”

“I want to see my mom,”  Kyra said.  She was quite composed, brown eyes studying him alertly, though her bushy dark hair was a little lank and her face thin, though the mottling had faded.  Crowley hesitated and Kyra sighed.  “I know she’s…not waking up,”  she said.  “But I need to know what she – what they’re doing with her.  Can you take me over there, you know, the way you do?”

“To a medical centre in a town no doubt crawling with the constabulary?”  She kept staring.  “Ah.  I forgot you hadn’t heard.  I travelled there last night and took care of Dr Watkins.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Why does no one understand nuance any more?  Yes. I killed him.”

“Good.”

“So it would be a mite inconvenient if folk there were to see me – and you, for that matter, since they’re looking for you.”  He thought that over for a moment.  “Not that they would do you any harm, but you do know that Lucifer would, don’t you?”

Her gaze had nothing young in it at all, and she nodded.

“He’s no doubt busy right now, but he doesn’t forget a grudge.  And surviving him is the sort of thing he takes badly.”

Had Watkins assaulted this child, Crowley wondered.  She didn’t show the signs – he knew them better than anyone else here would suspect he might – but she was a close one and he didn’t know her well enough to be sure.  He would have expected more problems with her being among only males here in the bunker, had that been the case.  But she had focused on Bobby as a father figure – well, probably a grandfather figure, he thought, trying not to grin – and also on him.  What in hell did _that_ signify?

“You make deals with people,”  she said.  “Could I make a deal?”

_Robert would salt and burn me._

“Not worth it for what you’re asking,”  he said dismissively.  “I can probably find out what…”

“I want you to bring my mom back.”

He checked a sigh, just before Kyra would have heard it.  If there was any Frequently Asked Question from those who sought to make a pact with Hell, it was this one.  The stupid, the venial, the wannabee evil, those he hardly even remembered.  They would come seeking easy money, easy sex or ‘celebrity’ status.  The crossroads demon would simply toss a luck spell at them, mark the soul, and be gone.  But then there were the others.  Sam and Dean Winchester themselves were among them; those who would come to him, when he’d been King of the Crossroads, and to his demons.  _Save my brother,_ they would say.  _Give me my mother back.  My lover.  I’ll give anything._

Well meaning, yes, but nowhere near as selfless as they thought themselves.  Never thinking of that loved one’s horror if they ever learned what had been done.  Or their grief when they returned, and then within seven short years, or ten, or whatever the deal was, they lost the deal maker to bloody and horrific death.  Most demons were stupid, yes, but they had _nothing_ on humanity.

Crowley looked at Kyra, not laughing, not rejecting.  Ignorance was not the issue here.  “May I sit?”  he asked, motioning at the bed.

“Sure,”  she said, uncertainly, knowing it was his room, and Bobby’s.

So he settled himself on the edge, neatly crossing one leg over another, leaning slightly towards her.  “Not all souls – not all _people­ –_ can be given back,”  he said, in the slightly pedantic tone of a schoolmaster.  “It depends where they were headed, for one.  I can’t pull anyone out of Heaven once they’re there, and if I can’t, I’m sure no other demon can.  And even if the soul was Hellbound, if that soul has already been remade into a demon, same thing.  Can’t turn it back.”  _Except in very special cases and we’re not going to talk about the Winchesters, are we?_

He paused to let her think that one over.  “You obviously know your mother much better than I do – I only saw her unconscious, after all – so what do you think?  Was she a good person?”  He mentally crossed his fingers.   Chryseis Hannan had got herself mixed up with Lucifer-worshippers, after all, which put her, at the very least, on the fence.

“She got me away from my dad,”  Kyra said.  Her face closed up, and Crowley knew better than to pursue that topic, though he desperately wanted to say that the fool woman had then taken her daughter into the home of a child molester.  A literally satanic child molester.

“And I’m sure she loved you very much.”  _Dial it back a step._ “In any case, you have to be adult to make a deal.”

Disbelief flashed over Kyra’s face and she said, “You mean I have to be eighteen to sell my soul to a demon?  Hell cares if you’re a kid or not?”

“Not like you mean.  I’m now, um, veering into a topic which is a mite dodgy.”  He paused again;  no, no one outside the door or within his ability to scan for them.  “Sexual maturity,”  he said bluntly.  “Once puberty hit, in the very old days, you were an adult and you got treated like one, which means married off, having to work to feed yourself, all the fun stuff.  And make deals for yourself, because the protection invoked for you as an infant is no longer in force.”  _Not sure she understands the concept of baptism, but never mind._

“Why are you bothering to say all this?”  Kyra asked.  “I mean, I could tell right away you wouldn’t do it.”

“I want to be sure you’re not going to try calling up another demon,”  Crowley snapped, as he would have with an adult.  Too late, he remembered, but Kyra remained calm.  “In a few months, a year at most, you’ll be able to make that deal….but not now.  And her soul will be beyond your reach by then.”

“That’s not fair,”  Kyra whispered.

Crowley raised his eyebrows at her.  “Your point?”

She shook her head slightly and would not look at him.  To his dismay, Crowley noted that she was indeed crying now, but still silently.  He figured noise was only moments away and rose to his feet with a heavy sigh.  “Come on then.”

“What?”

“I’ll take you to see your mother.  Hold my hand.”

*

“Bobby!”  Dean’s voice, already impatient, though Bobby had not had a chance to reply yet.  He had popped the hood of one of the classic cars in the underground garage, lured by the elegant tail fins, that would only need a bit of washing and polishing to gleam like new.  The engine looked fine to him.  “Hey, do you know where the kid’s got to?”

“No idea.  Busy.  They wander around, you know.”

Dean appeared beside him, blocking the light from the overhead bulb, to Bobby’s annoyance.  He gave the Cadillac a pat and straightened up, knowing he wouldn’t get rid of Dean that easily.  “Well, it’s been awhile since breakfast, so Sam organised lunch and then we couldn’t find her.  Checked her room, around the library, everyone else’s room, the empty ones…”

“I get it, Dean.  How about the shooting range?”

“What would a kid want with that?”

Bobby sighed deeply.  “They don’t have to want anything;  they just drift around and poke into stuff.  You’re closer to bein’ a kid than I am, dontcha remember?”

“I never just drifted around and poked into stuff,”  Dean said flatly.

Considering, Bobby had to agree that might well be the case.  John’s hunter training of Dean had started the night Mary died, far as Bobby knew, when the kid had been four years old.

“Whatever.  Go look anywhere there’s a hidey hole.  Or just wait for her to get hungry, that’ll work.”

“Sam was worried,”  Dean said.

“Right.”

Dean started away, then belatedly turned to call back, “Crowley wasn’t in his – I mean your room and he wasn’t lurking anywhere we looked either;  he say where he was going?”

“Didn’t know he was going anywhere.  We’re not shackled together.”

“Ha.”

*

Crowley travelled directly to the room where the woman had been lying in her coma.  Given the time elapsed; she could have been taken off her life support, though he hoped not; Kyra would want to chase up her whereabouts in that case.  He wasn’t all that sure why he was doing all this in any case, except that he thought Bobby would be pleased that he was helping the girl out.

No sense faffing around with approaching from outside;  shock would take care of any humans who saw them arrive.  As it turned out, the room was empty except for its patient in the bed.  Kyra first gripped his hand tightly and then pulled to make him let go.  Crowley sighed and did so.  She ran to her mother’s bedside and peered intently at her face, which Crowley could see was….faded, the best word he could come up with.  A body trying to die.  Her dark skin helped to hide the awful mottling damage Lucifer had caused and her eyes were closed.  He hadn’t burned this one out either, Crowley noted;  perhaps he had hoped his pet magician could make this meatsuit habitable again.

He walked to stand beside Kyra, arms crossed over his chest as he watched her struggle with tears.  “You see this machine,”  he murmured, and she spared a glance at the life support.  “Your mother appears to be breathing, but she’s only doing it in time with the machine pushing air into her lungs.  She hasn’t moved an inch since they placed her here.  That’s because _she_ isn’t even here.”

“I know,”  Kyra whispered. 

“If you know, girl, why are we here?”

“Because I had to say goodbye.”  She flicked a look at him as though he was the ignorant one here and addressed her attention to the still figure.  “Mom, I know you tried.  I know…”  Sobs burst out of her and she tried to hug Chryseis, whatever else she said intelligible.  The noise made Crowley cast a glance behind them at the door.  There were people not far away;  he could sense their approach.  He was about to put a hand on Kyra’s shoulder and yank her back to the bunker without ceremony when she suddenly stood up straight and said, “Can you stop that machine?”

Crowley shrugged and waved a hand at the life support mechanism, which emitted a shower of fiery sparks and went silent.  The woman’s chest lifted once, as the last pump of air went into her lungs, then stilled.  Kyra gasped a little, still crying, but silently now. “We have to take her,”  Kyra told him.

“Not a good idea,”  Crowley cautioned.  “Disappearing body gets attention and there’s enough mysteries in this town.  It’s not her, anyway, haven’t you listened to anything I’ve told you?  If the body stays, she gets a headstone, all that permanent stuff, but the hunters won’t agree to anything like that if we have to, ah, make arrangements at the bunker.”

“You promise?”

“Yes, yes, don’t know why it’s on me, but I promise.”

She grabbed his hand and in the next moment, they were in the bunker, inside Bobby and Crowley’s room, listening to the sound of footsteps moving away and Sam’s voice answering somebody, “I just looked _again_ , Dean, they’re not there!”

Crowley released Kyra’s hand, but was completely unprepared to have her lunge at him and wrap her arms as far around his middle as she could, hugging him almost desperately.  Her hold felt light to Crowley, after Bobby’s strength, but somehow like iron.

“Thank you,”  she whispered.  “You listened to me and you didn’t treat me like a kid!”

“You shouldn’t thank a demon, love, it makes us very uncomfortable,”  Crowley told her earnestly.  He looked down at her cloud of black hair, almost the same shade as his clothes, and gingerly patted her on the back.  “How about you repay me by never mentioning our little trip?”

Kyra nodded;  he felt the movement against his coat, before she let him go and stepped back carefully.  She looked around the sparsely furnished bedroom, brow furrowed in thought.  “Where can we say we went, if they’ve looked everywhere?”

“ _We_ didn’t go anywhere, love.  I’ll answer for myself;  you just wander into the kitchen and tell them how you fell asleep in some junk-filled corner and didn’t hear them searching.  Quick now, while the coast is clear.”  Still Kyra lingered in the doorway, her gaze on his, though Crowley was not sure what she hoped to gain by staring at him.  “What _now_ , darling?”

“Can I stay with you?”

“You _are_ staying with us for the time, until the hunters figure out somewhere you can go.”

“No – you and Mr Singer, you’re going to hunt the Shining Man, aren’t you?”  Crowley nodded slowly, wondering how she could sound quite childish one moment and the next, seem ages older.  Perhaps Amara had not been so different, except in the pace of her maturation.  “I don’t want to stay here or go to a foster place.  I want to go with you.”

“Ah….”

He was rescued, if that was the word, by Bobby abruptly appearing in the doorway and giving him an outraged look.  “Sam!”  he yelled over his shoulder.  “What’s the matter with your goddamn eyesight….oh, right, “ to Crowley.  “Did you ‘port her somewhere?”

“ _I_ was out somewhere more salubrious, darling, with much better alcohol.  Your little girl…”  He caught sight of Kyra’s caught-in-headlights expression. “….crawled out from under the bed not three minutes ago.  You may want to explain the concept of “thorough search” to Moose.  Or not.  It _is_ a long way down to the floor from there.”

As he sauntered out, he heard Bobby trying to tune down the grumpy outrage, but also Kyra starting to cry again, which was clever of her, Crowley speculated.  Robert was much more of a softie than he would want his boys or even Crowley to guess.  How long would it take Kyra to heal, he wondered;  from either Lucifer’s damage or her mother’s death?  People said demons couldn’t empathise, and maybe he couldn’t, not exactly as a human could, but he did remember.

Despite what he had told Bobby, while he had forgotten much, he’d had an unforgettable wound torn open in him when he was a child younger than Kyra, and had learned, proof positive, that his mother the witch did not want him.  Had never wanted him.  Kyra would not have to bear that, at least, and she had a focus for her grief which might well hone another hunter for the humans world.  If, Crowley thought, she wasn’t shunted off into safe obscurity, which the Winchesters and Robert wanted to do.

He sauntered towards the library, thinking he would settle down with something to read before any of the hunters decided to wonder where the resident demon was.  All this, he decided, was very much to be filed under _not my problem._


	15. Chapter 15

“Crowley.”

He jumped, wondering how on earth Bobby – never a subtle man – had managed to sneak up on him so effectively.  “Resting my eyes,”  he claimed quickly, picking up the book in his lap.

“Sure,”  Bobby rumbled, not even trying to hide his grin as he pulled a chair up beside Crowley’s.  “Look, I think it’s just about time we got out of here.  Thanks to you, Lucifer’s helper is explainin’ himself to your friends in Hell – and there’s no more we can do for Kyra’s mother.  The boys are talkin’ about drivin’ back to that town to flush out any of Watkins’ coven still hangin’ around, so it’s a good time for us to go too.”

Crowley nodded.  “I find it interesting that that town has no churches.”

“You do, huh?”

“So it might still be a safe hideout for Lucifer, once the police give up on finding answers.”

“You think Lucifer can stay quiet?”

“At the moment, very possibly.  He can be impulsive, but he’s actually no more insane than anyone else in Hell.”

Bobby stared at him speechlessly for several moments and shook his head.  “That seriously don’t help, Crowley!”

“Yes, well, sanity is all relative.”  He reached out a hand, wondering how Bobby would respond, and felt a flush of pleasure as the hunter wrapped his arm tightly around him and held him close.  “I think you should join Moose and Squirrel and drive up to the cabin.  You know I have to …. organise my affairs, catch up with some people – demons – the usual.  I can do that while you drive up, take some of the books for further study.  But _don’t_ let Moose and Squirrel crash at the cabin; that would severely cramp my future plans.  Am I clear?”

Crowley watched Bobby look around at the old books with a covetous expression in his eyes.  The demon smiled.  Bobby was an open book himself sometimes.  “How long do you think you’re gonna be with your ‘business?’”  Bobby asked him.

“Not long, by surface time.”Craftily, he added, “You could borrow one of those lovely old cars to drive back;  work on it some more after you got it there.  It’s not like Moose and Squirrel need them all.”

“I guess so,”  Bobby said, looking at the books again, definitely more distracted.

“By the way,”  Crowley added as Bobby got creakily to his feet and headed back towards the war room, “does Sheriff Mills know that you’re back yet?”

“Not from me,”  Bobby growled.  “Why?”

“Well, if she’s going to take custody of Kyra, she’ll find out, won’t she?”

“ _If_ that happens.  The boys don’t think Jody will agree, remember,”  Bobby said reluctantly.  He still hadn’t figured out how they were going to break the news of his return to Jody, and that would have to be done, one way or another.  “And what happened to all that you were sayin’ about Kyra needin’ to stay under hunter protection?  She sure can’t stay here on her own!”  He paused, studying Crowley with narrowed eyes.  “What the hell are you hatchin’?”   Crowley shrugged innocently.  “Oh no.  _Hell_ , no.  Come on, if you thought Sam and Dean were gonna cramp your style, what do you think a kid would do?  That cabin is one room!”

He sighed, walked slowly back across the room and sat down again next to Crowley, who settled comfortably against him.  _This all seems so easy for him_ , Bobby mused, trying to calm his thoughts.  _But me….barely a week ago, I got kicked out of Heaven and back into this thing called life, into a goddamned relationship involvin’ gay sex with the King of Hell and a battle with Lucifer and gods know what else is coming_.

“Where are we goin’, Crowley?”  he asked helplessly. “Just tell me what you want.  It feels like you’ve got plans I don’t know about.  What you do in Hell is your business, but why are you talkin’ about keepin’ that kid around?  Even if Lucifer was primin’ her as a permanent host and that’s something I don’t even want to think about, if she’s off the board somewhere, she’s _not_ goin’ to be his focus, not if the boys and us too, stay on his heels.  She’s not goin’ to be that useful as bait.”

Crowley nodded; accepting his point and not, Bobby noted, at all offended by the suggestion.  “Kyra asked me whether she could stay with us,”  he said.  “With you and me in particular.  She said she doesn’t want to stay here, or go to a foster place, by which I’m guessing she has some experience of them.”

“Well, yeah, I can understand that, but what choice do we have?”

“Your cabin could be extended to provide another smallish room,”  Crowley said.  “I’ve got the magical energy and wherewithal to take care of that myself.”

Bobby shrugged, putting an arm back around him in defeat.  “You can get demons to do it, you mean?  Yeah, I hear you.  One; not crazy about demons – even yours -  bein’ around for any reason and two, I just don’t figure why you want to.”

“Would she make a hunter, do you think?”

“Kyra?”  Startled, Bobby gave it some consideration.  “A lot of hunters start where she is now,”  he admitted.  “They start by huntin’ the thing that got their family, or their friend, and if they’re lucky, they survive that and start learnin’ a thing or two.  I don’t think she knows anything about weapons or fighting or supernatural research, but not many do, when they begin.”

“And with you and me as mentors, how do you think she would do?”

Bobby managed a rusty sort of smile.  “Much better odds in that case, even if her enemy is Satan himself.  She seems smart enough.  So you want to help make a hunter, do you?  Seems like that might be kinda….counterproductive, King of Hell?”

“She likes me,”  Crowley countered, giving him an injured look.

Bobby stared back at him, abruptly understanding what had been bewildering him for the past few minutes.  Crowley might have all the clever arguments ready, but this whole matter boiled down to those simple words:  Kyra liked him.  How many people – beings? – Bobby wondered – had liked Crowley?  From what he and the boys said, even his own witch mother had abandoned him at the age of eight, leaving him to a hard, deprived life and a worse death.  _That’s what he’s seeing,_   Bobby thought suddenly, _not the 21 st century foster homes, which can be bad places but most of whom try to do their best for the kids in their charge.  He’s seein’ the workhouses of the 17th where he was nothin’ but a body to be worked and otherwise cast aside._

“We need to talk to the boys,”  he said at last, not knowing the solution.  He didn’t think Sam or Dean would either, but hopefully some usable idea would float up in the next few hours.  Crowley didn’t look like he favoured that idea much, by his look, but he appeared resigned.  “At dinner might be a good time.”  He touched his lips to Crowley’s cheek almost timidly.  “Glad you’re comin’ with me,”  he said, before getting up and leaving.

Crowley looked after him, almost in a daze.  “Almost like having a family,”  he murmured.  _And how would you know that, wee man?_   He grimaced, hearing Rowena’s taunting voice in his head.  Did he have to have a witch mother mocking him when she wasn’t even in the room now?  He heard voices;  Sam, talking to Kyra by the sound of it, asking her something or other.  So gentle, despite his size, that she wasn’t the least bit afraid of him.  She wasn’t quite so easy with Dean, though the hunter’s awkwardness around her probably had something to do with that.

Suddenly Crowley found himself on his feet, uneasy without any physical prompting to cause it.  _Plans_ , he thought.  _I’m involved with them now, as though I was human.  But I’m not.  I never can be again.  Those are the rules.  That child would never like me if she understood, really understood, what I am and what I have done to become this being.  Any more than even Robert Singer does!_

The shelves of books, the room itself, seemed to close on him and he felt himself choking, as though the very air itself was running out.  He closed his eyes as he willed his transit, through the no-space of his power, pulling on those damned souls he controlled . . . to take form again below the earth.

*

Sam had been on his way out for supplies when Bobby found him, and without prompting suggested that Bobby might like to go with him.  “What”s Dean up to?”  Bobby asked.

“Off to talk to Jody.”

“In person?”

“Yeah, she’s apparently at some cop thing, a bit closer than Sioux Falls,”  Sam said, and Bobby left the topic there.  Fortunately Sam was a bit more attuned to nuance than Dean;  he knew Bobby was uneasy about meeting Jody again and probably had more insight into why.  “Uh, I don’t believe I’m saying this, but can you go check with Crowley about babysitting the kid?”

“Why can’t she come along?”

“Pictures on milk cartons, Bobby.”

“Oh, right.  Is there actually a missing person alert out there now?”

“Yeah,”  Sam told him.  “The Winterridge police put it out there; no details about the kid’s family, just her name and picture and please call them if found, the usual.  I, uh, showed it to Kyra to see what she wanted to do.”

“And?”

“She looked real scared, Bobby.”

“Okay, I’ll go tell Crowley.”

Bobby wasn’t too worried when he found Crowley’s book sitting on his empty chair in the library, and no demon in view.  He called out his name and went into the residential wing to check the room, then back into the War Room, where he found Kyra, having gotten from her room to there without him noticing.  She had Sam’s laptop open in front of her on the table and looked up quickly.

“You see Crowley, darlin’?”  he asked.

“He’s in the library,”  she said.

“No, I just checked there.”  Not willing to go through yet another internal hunt for anybody at all, Bobby surveyed her thoughtfully, casting his mind back to another couple of kids that had landed on his doorstep, so to speak.  Some kids (Dean)  would get theatrical if you asked them a difficult question;  others (Sam) would go the quiet route, as though hoping the adult would just lose interest and go away if they sounded boring enough.  “You’re gettin’ on okay with him then?”

Kyra actually smiled at that, a quick, nervous sort of expression as though not sure it was all right to smile.  But the fact it happened at all intrigued Bobby.  She nodded, definitely, and kept her eyes on his face as though expecting something else.  Hopeful, Bobby realised, that was the word for that look.  Damn, if Crowley had disappeared somewhere, he was stuck here or they found some way to disguise the kid.

“We need to go for supplies,”  he said.  “Can’t leave you on your own, so I was hopin’ he was about to babysit.”

Sam came in then, “You ready to go, Bobby?  Brace yourself, we’re using the car Cas got and it – what’s going on?”

“Crowley’s not around,”  Bobby said glumly.  “Look, can’t we just stick a hat on her and she stays in the car.”  He gave Kyra a stern look and she nodded again quickly.

“I guess,”  Sam shrugged.  He didn’t look completely happy with the plan and Bobby guessed he had wanted to talk over the Jody plan with him, maybe suggest Bobby figure out a way to meet Jody and explain his presence to her.  As though that was even possible!  Why couldn’t anyone ever discuss what they were doing with anybody else, he wondered.  Preferably before they took off to do it!  He did wonder also, just why Crowley had zapped off.  He had seemed, for him, quite content there reading;  Bobby had half considered asking him to come for a walk outside, just the two of them.  Switching that to Sam and a twelve-year-old hadn’t quite been in the mission plan.

They didn’t drive far.  There wasn’t enough of Lebanon for that.  It was too small, really, for anonymity, Bobby thought, sitting uncomfortably in the shotgun seat of Cas’s admittedly horrific piss-yellow sedan.  Sam found a parking spot under some trees by the roadside, though the spring weather was still on the nippy side, and sternly reiterated to Kyra that she was to stay in the car and slouch down under the cap they’d found for her, if anyone came close.

“We’re going to be in the store five minutes that way,”  he said, pointing, “so if there is a problem and you have to leave the car, come find us there.”

Bobby paused by the car as Sam headed away, then pulled a stick of chalk from his pants and quickly inscribed sigils on the car, both sides, front and back.  Sam turned to see what he was doing and Bobby shrugged, a bit embarrassed.  “We’re not supposed to leave her on her own,”  he said.

“You could stay here,”  Sam pointed out.  “I’ve got the list of stuff we need.”

“Not the stuff _I_ need,”  Bobby muttered.  When they reached the store, he peeled off for the alcohol section.  Somehow he was sure he was going to need it.  He paid for the booze and then headed outside, wanting to put eyes on the car to be sure Kyra was okay.  When Sam joined him, he said, “I’m worried about Crowley.”

“You could call him.”

“Nah, I don’t have the ingredients and ….it just seems kinda rude now, you know.”

“Not summoning,”  Sam said, digging in his jacket pocket for his cellphone and handing it over.  Bobby stared at it in total disbelief.

“You can _call Hell on your cell?”_

“Don’t try to make sense of it,”  Sam advised.  “Just hit the number and try to think you’re calling somewhere normal.”

Gingerly, Bobby did and listened to the perfectly ordinary dial tone with trepidation.  When it broke to the traditional raspy voice, he held his breath:

_“Too busy causing pain to answer.  Leave a message and I might get back to you.”_

“Hey, Crowley.  Got kinda concerned when I couldn’t find you.  Give me a call back when you, you know, got a minute.”

*

The demon screamed as it caught fire, blazing up most satisfactorily before Crowley’s eyes.  He stood grimly watching until the creature was entirely dissipated, its smoke sizzling to nothing but a stain on the flagstones of the long steps leading below the earth.  He had been in Hell barely ten earthside minutes before somebody tried their luck, he mused, then ported again, into the gothic-cathedral setting of his downside throne room.  Well, he wasn’t certain it was his again yet.  Didn’t look as though Lucifer had spent any time here.  Perhaps he had not ventured down from the surface yet, not quite so sure of his support as he had sounded, playing his games in the old asylum.

 _I’m here._   He used all his powers to let the message vibrate and spread through the ether of damnation, ripping all the power he could from the souls he ruled, via the contracts written on their bones.  _Come to your King._

And his demons did.

From an huge empty chamber, with black walls inscribed in bloody runes of a language no living creature knew, his throne room was abruptly full of the terrified damned, as he pulled them to him unwilling, whether they could teleport themselves or not.  It hurt.  He wanted to hurt them and he stabbed agony into them with his will, knocking some of them down, rolling into others and bleeding upon the stone floor.

The misery of Hell seemed to swallow him.  You never got over it;  it was never bearable, even when you got to be King and destroy whatever you pleased below you; always awake, always on edge for the inevitable attempts to destroy you in turn.  Being here in his ornate throne room, the real thing for which anything on the surface was only a faded copy, brought this home to Crowley yet again.  He stared at the rows of demons crammed into the space.  “Daddy’s home,”  he said softly. “Anyone got something they’d like to say to me?”

“Ah – we can explain,”  whined one of them.

Crowley lashed out.  Again and again, randomly now among the mob, whom he held rigidly still, though their minds screamed agony.  It took him some time to calm down, he noted;  his anger issues problem didn’t seem any better.

He paused, head held high as he paced in front of them, smiling as they cowered back from him.  They were eager to flatter and cringe, now that he had bloodily disposed of enough of them to get their attention.  Some were hastily dragging away the bodies of the demons he had gutted, not caring enough to finish them with a good burning.

“Lucifer is gone,”  he said harshly, the magic projecting his voice to all in Hell, whether in his physical presence or not.  “He is fleeing on the surface, the hunters on his trail, and I have barred the door to him.  When he is captured, the only place he will land is the Cage!”

He smiled as he saw being dragged, those particular demons who had been quickest to aid Lucifer in his humiliation of Crowley; stripping his fine suit from him and parading him naked, then allowing him to dress in those degrading clothes, cram him into a dog kennel and attach a chain around his neck.  A couple were still alive, their vessels’ innards spilling out and the body’s pain making them scream in agony.  Those were to go to to Hell’s finest torturers, who would keep them in those meatsuits as long as possible.

He stepped down from his dais for a better look, and the front row of terrified demons cringed away from him.  That was only what he wanted, but it also reminded him of the other torment of Hell.  No one touched you except to cause pain.  Sex was only rape, a touch was a blade through the organs, a voice blinding pain through the head.  Hell.  _Yet there was also Bobby’s touch, gentle in his strength, a kiss to Crowley’s cheek or the full intimacy of his love._

What was he doing remembering that in Hell?  He stared down at the fallen demons, almost having forgotten what he had been doing.  His fine shoes were soaked in blood; the stone floor was awash in it.  The perfume of the damned.  He shouldn’t be wanting Bobby while he was here.

“Finish this,”  he ordered sharply, catching the gazes of one demon after another.  “When it is done, all those cleared for work on the surface are to return there and continue in the hunt for Lucifer, before all other duties.  Answer calls to the crossroads but do not seek out souls.”

“Is the order to locate and secure your mother still in place, your Majesty?” quavered one, clearly terrified to speak up, but having the nerve to do so.  Crowley nodded, approving that.  He would need a new council of top advisers, having gone through so many during Amara’s difficult raising.  “Leave her for now.  I will take care of that if it proves necessary.  What’s your name?”

“Saddam, your Majesty.”

“Well, Saddam, you’re now in charge in my absence.  Don’t disappoint me.”

The swarthy, black-haired demon was still stammering out panic stricken thanks and devotion when Crowley vanished.

*

Bobby shrugged, handing the phone back to Sam.  “Nothin’, well, just his message.”

“Probably thinks it’s me,”  Sam admitted.  “Don’t worry, he’ll show up.”  With the grocery bags in his arms, he strode off back to the car and Bobby followed, edgy for no reason he could decipher.

Dean called, not long after he, Sam and Kyra had made it back to the bunker, saying he was on his way in and that Jody was with him.  The brevity and the flatness of his tone worried Sam a little;  the prospect of Jody arriving sent Bobby into a panic.  “Did he tell her?”  he demanded of Sam.  “Call him back and find out!”

Sam did, then put his phone away again with a shrug.  “He’s not picking up.  And I couldn’t tell if Dean told her;  all he said was that she was with him.”

“Well, you’re gonna tell her, all right?  I’ll stay in my room until you tell her and she calms down, however long that takes.  And you don’t say I’m actually in the building!”

“All right, Elvis, you got it,”  Sam said soothingly.  “Though I thought you had more guts, Bobby.  Seriously;  you’re chucked out of the house upstairs, your first act is to call a demon, you’re now shacked up with said demon, and you’re scared of Sheriff Jody Mills?”

“You betcha.  You should be too.”

“This is the lady you want me to go and live with?”

They had both forgotten about Kyra.  Below eye level,  Bobby thought ruefully;  she had just stood there quietly while he and Sam yammered at each other.  “Uh, yeah,”  Sam admitted.  “But she’s cool with kids, it’s just, uh….”

Kyra looked up at him and Bobby thoughtfully, as though she already knew everything they weren’t saying.

“It’s just if you don’t behave around her, she’s real good at sorting you out,”  Bobby told her.  “And I’m not talkin’ about kids.”  He headed out of the room, more because he wanted some space than because he had any destination in mind. 

*

Crowley blinked into the room he was currently sharing with Bobby.  The hunter was sitting on the edge of the bed in a slumped, dispirited position and did not notice Crowley’s arrival.  No wonder, really, it was certainly possible for him to be soundless; he just didn’t bother with that very often.  For a moment he just savoured the chance to look at Bobby while he was oblivious of it. 

He was, Crowley thought, the same as he had been just before his fatal injury at the hands of the Leviathan Dick Roman, meaning he had obviously not aged in Heaven.  It was a hard thing to do to a human;  bring him back already advanced in his life, tough and fit though Bobby had been.  Was.   But what could have happened already?  His mission sorting out Hell hadn’t been as quick as he’d hoped, but time here on the surface ran swifter;  it couldn’t be more than a day or so.  “Robert,”  he ventured uncertainly, and Bobby dropped his hands from his face and swore in surprise.

“Shit, Crowley.  Why don’t you answer your phone?”

“I was a little busy, love.”  He went to sit beside Bobby, not all that sure whether he’d be welcome or not.

“Do I want to know?”

“No.”

“Uh, _you_ should know, Jody Mills is inbound."  His hand found Crowley’s shoulder, pulled him close.  “God, what’s that….oh.”  The acrid, iron scent was that of blood, liberally scattered over Crowley’s clothes, a scent which like him had transferred out of a plane of existence he had no business remembering.  He gripped, feeling what seemed like ordinary human flesh beneath his fingers, but it was only a garment, like the black coat itself, worn by a creature beyond his true understanding.

Bobby raised his other hand to Crowley’s face and the other merely waited while Bobby scanned him, like a stranger.  In the quiet, Bobby’s mind seemed to race over the handful of days he had spent back in life, the sense that Crowley somehow grounded him, _kept_ him here.  This was the demon over all demons, the King of Hell itself that he was touching, but a man also, with his green eyes and wicked grin and clever mind, all the aspects of him that had gotten inside Bobby’s skin.  He needed to know and accept all those things, and this blood scent, the truth and proof of what Crowley had probably been about, in that realm of his.

“You need a shower,”  he said quietly, stroking through the short beard, stilling his fingers on Crowley’s cheek for a moment.  “C’mon, I’ll get you some clean things.  That t-shirt and jeans are here somewhere.  Then, I guess, I have to let Jody see me.  They’re tryin’ to persuade her to take the kid;  she won’t even go there without talking to me.  Sam says she was freaked, but she’s calmed down, just kinda insisting I come talk before anything more happens, so that’s why she’s followin’ Dean back.  You think you can be there?”

“Ah – the sheriff might be a bit distracted if she sees me.  We had a little thing, you see, and it didn’t exactly end well….”

“When the fuck did you and Jody have a thing?”  He sighed.  “That’s another thing that got left out of that damn summary, ain’t it?  Okay.  Well – can you at least wait here to cheer up what’s left when I get back?”

“Of course, darling.”

He made it light, his usual cheeky, careless comment, but Bobby wasn’t fooled.  He rested his hands either side of Crowley’s face and very quietly and deliberately kissed him hard.  “Don’t forget,”  he said softly, then repeated the kiss before getting up, leaving a rather dazed demon behind him.  “And go take the damn shower!  I’ll find you the clothes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Memory fails me as to whether Bobby was around for the disastrous Crowley/Jody 'date'. I think he was already gone by then; can't remember if he was about as a ghost, so I've chosen to say not.
> 
> Also not sure of the details of the car Cas was driving, but I seem to remember it as gold/yellow.
> 
> Sorry for delays. I'm back at work and so pretty tired a lot of the time. This is all of the story I have at the moment; got a few ideas as to where to take it but haven't chosen a direction for sure yet. Feel free to let me know ideas/preferences!


	16. Chapter 16

“Thanks for coming back with me, Jody.”

“Were you going to explain all the mystery if I didn’t?”

“In front of a hotel full of cops?  Yeah, that’ll happen.  Come on, me and Sam told you about Bobby, well, once we were in the car …”

She went quiet at that, and that was scary.  A long silence and then he sensed her glare on him.

“What have you done, Dean?  Is Bobby okay?  Is Sam okay?”

Dean Winchester turned slightly to give Jody Mills an injured look.  “Why are you asking if they’re okay and not me?”

“Because I’m talking to you, dumbass, and I can see you’re breathing.  Anything else can wait.  And remember, whatever’s going on, you have to get me back tomorrow by four o’clock.  I’m supposed to be on a panel describing how I’ve helped lower the level of crime in Sioux Falls tomorrow afternoon.”

“You want more stupid criminals, huh?”

“I’ll let you know when they’re recruiting.”

“Ouch!”  Dean grinned at her and thankfully turned his attention back to the night road.  Jody sat back with a sigh.  She wasn’t altogether sorry this had happened;  police conferences were a waste of time in her opinion, too much talk and not enough walk, but a county sheriff did not say no to a police commander.  She’d gotten out with the story that Dean was a friend come to fetch her because something had happened with one of the girls.  Jody made a mental note to tell Claire she’d had a raging fight with her friend and been sent home, just in case someone rang up.  Claire would get off on that and Jody’s only worry would be how much it was going to cost.

“So how are Claire and Alex doing?”  Dean asked, jolting Jody before she recollected it was hardly an unexpected query.

“Okay, I hope.  I told them I thought they were responsible enough to stay home on their own for the weekend and not throw a wild party.”

“Can they tell when you’re lying?”

“I hope not.  I’m counting on positive reinforcement to do the job.  And I asked a couple of beat cops from the office to drive past a couple of times.”

“Love the sense of optimism, Jody.”

“You never answered my question, Dean.”

“Yes, they’re okay!”

“The _other_ question.”

Dean drove on.

*

Sam’s phone buzzed;  he picked it up to look at it and then met Bobby’s nervous stare.  “Dean says they’re almost here.  What do you want to do?”

Across from him at the table, Kyra sat crosslegged, still playing some game or other on Sam’s laptop.  Sam had gotten her some more clothes while he’d been out and she was now wearing a new bright blue and yellow hoodie and light blue jeans.  Of course, when Sam spoke, she looked up at Bobby, who reluctantly looked back at her.  What sort of message was he going to give her about Jody, he thought, if he headed out of the room to hide, rather than meet her?  Damn Sam for suggesting to the kid she might like to play something, while keeping them company.

“Fine, I’ll stay here.”

Bobby closed his eyes for a moment when he heard the clattering of feet on the steps above, as two people made their way into the Men of Letters bunker.  He wished fervently for Crowley’s power to just zap himself out of awkward situations.  Made himself open them, found only Kyra looking at him, shut them again.  Sam got to his feet and went to greet his brother and the sheriff.  Kyra scrambled out of her seat and ran, but Bobby had no time for her right then.  There was a mumble of voices, Jody’s standing out; puzzled, then suspicious.  Then nothing at all.  A soft tracking of sounds, Jody walking into the war room.

“Bobby?”  She sounded _scared_ , and that from Jody was frightening in itself.  He opened his eyes again and saw her;  those few years older, a bit heavier, maybe, but the same pixie-cut brown hair, the sheriff’s uniform, the eyes never afraid to face something head on.  “It’s really you.  _Is_ it really you?”

“I’m sure the boys have got some holy water if you want to….”

Sam held out a flask.  Jody took it and advanced around the table as Bobby stood, waiting.  The water hit him in the face and dripped down his neck.  He wiped it slowly out of his eyes, hearing Jody exhale deeply.  Then before he could think of anything to say, she had struck him hard and most accurately in the face.  Bobby hadn’t been braced for it and he lost what balance he had and fell backwards.  _Great, Jody’s so happy to see me that she kills me….wait, why am I not on the floor?_

He was, in fact, in a perfect floor-sprawling position maybe an inch above the tiles.  Not floating, this wasn’t some spacy anti-grav, but just….held.  This lasted for perhaps two seconds, enough for him to realise it, before he dropped the rest of that tiny distance. 

“Mr Singer!”  Kyra was on one side of him, trying to pull him upright on her own.  He was about to demand where this “Mr Singer” stuff had come from when he realised Crowley was on his other side.  The demon sighed, snapped his fingers and Bobby found himself on his feet.

Jody was speechless and so, incredibly, were both the Winchesters.  Bobby Singer, with an anxious preteen on one side and a protective demon in black jeans and t-shirt on the other, decided it was up to him to move things forward.  “Hello, Jody,”  he managed.  Nobody looked too satisfied with that so he tried again.  “It’s really me.  I’ve only been back a week so I hadn’t, uh, got around to, you know…”

Jody didn’t seem sure who to focus on.  She gave the girl a disbelieving look, and then switched to Crowley, studying him hard.  _Jody never saw him, not when I was…alive,_  Bobby thought.  _I should’ve made him tell me what the fuck he was talking about, them havin’ a thing…._

“Roderick?”  Jody said slowly.  “I mean….Crowley?  You tried to kill me…give me that flask back, Sam!”

“I would have killed you.  I chose to let you live.”

“You fucking liar,”  Dean growled suddenly.  “That was your price for us not closing the gates of hell!”

“And look where you’d have been if you had!  Not that you _kept_ that deal for very long, Squirrel…”

Jody drew her sidearm and fired directly at Crowley’s heart.  Moments later, Kyra screamed and tried to get to him.  Bobby had to intercept and wrap his arms around her to stop that.  Sam did the same with Jody.  Dean jumped at Crowley, who had not moved, but now pointed at Dean, who found himself thudding backwards into an ancient Men of Letters ‘50s computer now decorating a far wall.

“He’s fine, he’s okay,”  Bobby growled into Kyra’s ear, wincing as one of her kicks accurately got him too high for comfort, but fortunately not dead centre.  “He’s a _demon_ ; ordinary bullets can’t hurt him!”

“The same can’t be said for my – oh wait, I’m not wearing my suit!”  That was Crowley, of course, speaking in tones of enlightened discovery.  “All it shredded was this t-shirt that’s only moments from rag status anyway.”

“Shit, Jody, don’t kick me!”  Sam’s yelp was also rather higher than his usual voice.  “We can explain!”

Crowley abruptly remembered what had happened – what he had done – shortly after he last heard those words.  Suddenly he didn’t want to snark the Winchesters, or even the sheriff.  And he very much did not want to settle down and _explain_ to any of them.  Well, perhaps to one person.  Or two.  Bobby was looking at him with incredulous anger in his eyes, even though _he_ was the person who had been shot.  He fingered his chest, wondering how deep the bullet had penetrated.  Kyra, seeing that he was still standing and breathing, had mercifully ceased struggling and kicking in Bobby’s arms.

“Can I let go, darlin’?”  he asked her.

“Yes!” 

“Don’t try to attack Jody.  She was startled and scared.  People can’t be blamed for what they do when they’re like that.  Did you go and ask Crowley to come in here?”

Jody’s anger eased as she listened to this and Sam released her without comment.  She did give Crowley a fierce “you’ll wait” sort of look, but no more.

“Yeah,”  Kyra admitted.  “I knew you were kinda worried and I was scared something would happen.”

“Well, I appreciate not gettin’ a bump on the head, but it wouldn’t have been that bad,”  Bobby told her.  “But we were goin’ to explain about me to Jody before we brought in a complication.  That’s Crowley.  You made her deal with all of it at once and that’s not good.”

“But she’s police and she _shot_ him.”

Crowley couldn’t help a smirk at the indignation in the girl’s voice.  Clearly, that was not how police officers were meant to behave.  He filed that away for later possible use. 

“Crowley,”  Bobby said wearily, “will you please take Kyra back to her room and explain what just happened if you can?  I’ll be there….later.”

“Of course, love,”  Crowley said, using the endearment from habit rather than malice, but he and Bobby both saw Jody’s eyes widen in shock.  “Come along, sweetheart.  I think this is a job for chapter three in that book I picked up….”

“I got nothing,”  Bobby said a moment after they left, seeing three pairs of eyes fixed on him.

“It’s _Field Guide to the American Teenager,_ ”   Sam volunteered.  “What?  He left it on his chair.”

Jody found her way to the nearest chair before her legs gave out on her and leaned her head into her hand for a moment, as the others awkwardly seated themselves also and whispered like schoolchildren until the sheriff sighed and lifted her head to look at Bobby again.  “Okay.  Can you begin at the beginning and go on until you get to the end and then stop?  And before you do that, can someone get me a fricking drink and something to snack on?”

There was no way to do that without explaining Crowley.  Between Jody’s request and Sam coming back with beers and some slices of cold pizza that had somehow survived Dean for a few hours, Bobby had worked that out, if nothing else.  So he grimly pretended he was talking to a tape recorder, nobody else was in the room, and followed Jody’s directive.  With only a _bit_ of editing for certain bits, but everything about Lucifer’s return.  It took a couple of hours.  When he was done, Bobby reached for the glass of whisky which somebody had placed in front of him and took a swig.  The silence hadn’t broken yet.

He glanced around to make sure Crowley and Kyra were still clear.  They were.  Very slowly, he looked at Jody.

“That girl – was _Lucifer_?”  the sheriff asked.  Everybody nodded. 

“She’s herself now,”  Bobby hastened to add.  “Just a normal kid.”

“Right.  Except for being possessed and having a mom who also hosted Lucifer and is now in a coma and where her creepy doctor buddy that she was living with kind of set up the whole thing because he had a hard on for kids and demons.  Absolutely no potential for lifelong trauma there.”

Bobby winced for real, definitely not pretending there.

“And _you_ are back from paradise…”

“It’s not paradise…”

“….and shacked up with a demon.  Who’s a guy.”

“Definitely not paradise,”  Dean muttered to Sam, who choked back laughter.  Bobby glared at them and waited to see if Jody was going to follow that up with anything.  She seemed to have run down for the time being, so Bobby reminded himself that they were trying to find a home for Kyra.

“So don’t you want to help Kyra get away from all the craziness?”  he asked hopefully.

“I can’t, Bobby,”  Jody said directly, turning to include the Winchesters in that refusal.  “I’m stretched about as far as I can go with Claire and Alex, and they’re older, they’ll be on their own paths in a few years.  Alex wants to go to college and I’m going to do my best to help her with that.  Claire, well, she’ll be what she’ll be.”  The sheriff gave a slightly frustrated shrug towards Sam and Dean, indicating what she thought that was going to be.  “She’s already really into the hunter stuff and some things have happened with her _and_ Alex….well, never mind, the only important thing is that I don’t seem to be great at keeping kids away from the craziness.  A kid whom the Devil himself might still be interested in?  I’m not up for that.  I’m sorry.”

“So why did you come all the way here if you already made up your mind?”  Dean asked.

“Because you weren’t going to believe me unless I did,”  Jody said.  “And when the boys _finally_ told me your part of the story, I had to see you, Robert Singer.”  Her smile then was wistful and Bobby’s heart did a sort of lurch, remembering their experiences together, that time he’d kissed her, all the times she’d gotten him out of troubles with the law.  “Look, you may not like this answer, but I think you’re going to have to drop the kid somewhere and run.  No, the foster system is far from ideal, but if you take her to somewhere very far from anywhere the supernatural stuff happened, she will get something like a normal life.  I can give you a few recommendations to good people who will try to care for her, if you want.”

_And if Lucifer finds her?  What if we can’t stay on his tail; what if we can’t bind the Devil and send him below?_

Bobby got to his feet, earning a surprised look from the boys and Jody.  “I’ll be back, I just got to check…”  he said and headed out of the room.  He looked into his room, found no Crowley, which somehow didn’t surprise him, and walked down the hallway to Kyra’s door, which had light showing underneath it.  He knocked softly and heard both Kyra and Crowley saying, “Come in.”  When he opened it, he saw Crowley sitting on the bed and Kyra snuggled up next to him.  She had been crying and Crowley himself seemed unsettled.  He looked at Bobby but didn’t say anything, snarky or otherwise.

“Okay if I sit?”  he asked, gesturing at the bed and when Kyra nodded, sat himself on the side, close to Crowley, who was leaning against the head of the bed, with his black socked feet neatly on the covers.  He looked at the girl.  “You’re lookin’ better,”  he observed lamely, noting that the mottling of her skin had eased and her eyes seemed clear.  Looked like you could survive the Devil taking you, if he didn’t stay very long.  Kyra sniffed as though to give the lie to that.  Was he supposed to let her know he’d noticed her crying or not?  He looked helplessly at Crowley, thinking he could use a bit of support here.  “Come on, Crowley.  Don’t set me up as the villain here.”

“How did it go?”  Crowley asked softly.

Bobby sighed deeply.  “Well, she made me feel like shit, which I kinda deserve,”  he said.  “And _you_ kind of deserve;  what you did to her.  I think you should go in there and apologise, Fergus Roderick McLeod.”

Kyra had tensed under his arm, when Bobby said that about him doing something bad to Jody.  A man being violent to a woman;  wasn’t that something he knew about, back in the day?  Something _he’d_ done, being the worthless creature he was, something this child seemed to know altogether too much about.  He lightened his hold, not wanting her to feel that he was controlling her, and wondered at that.  It wasn’t something he would normally care about.  His ability to control the demons of Hell stemmed partly from the fact that he didn’t give a shit about them.

“Now?”  he asked Bobby.

“In a minute.  We got to settle something first.  Kyra, she gave us some advice, as a cop can.  Offered us some contacts in the foster system, to make sure you got a good place, until you turn eighteen.  If you chose that way, Crowley here could make sure you were all right, but if you were to stay safe, we’d have to keep our distance, make sure nothin’ and no one could find its way to you.”

“Jody wouldn’t take Kyra,”  Crowley said, his voice neutral.

“No.  She’s got two older teenaged girls already; she can’t take on another kid.  She also made the point that she’s connected to the hunter world.  She could be a port of call for Lucifer if he ever….well, you know.”  No need to keep harping on that danger. 

Kyra turned her face against Crowley’s side.  She stayed silent but he knew she was crying.  He patted her shoulder.

“Kyra, look at me,”  Bobby said.  Slowly, she did.  “You got to understand.  If you stay with us, things won’t always be fun.  I can’t guarantee your safety.  Crowley can’t.  You’re gonna have to grow up fast, learn a lot of difficult lessons, not the normal teenage shit.  You’ve seen Sam and Dean.  I helped raise them since their dad….wasn’t around much.  He was a hunter, like the boys are now, like I am.  That’s likely what you’ll be and it ain’t romantic, I promise you that, but it’s what I know how to teach.  And call me Bobby, not Mr Singer.  I know you’re tryin’ to show respect but that gives me hives.”

She sniffed hard, desperately trying to restore her calm.  “I know.  I want to stay with both of you.  I can do it….Bobby.”

“Good.”  He gentled his voice, a low rumble.  “That’s good.  Now, go wash your face and then we’ll face the music and listen to Crowley’s apology;  that’s gonna be entertainin’.”

When the three of them entered the War Room, they found Jody, Dean and Sam still arguing around the table.  They stopped abruptly and Jody stood, evidently not wanting to be seated while Crowley was around.  Kyra stayed by Bobby’s side while he waved Crowley forward to face Jody.  “Crowley’s got somethin’ to say to you, Jody,”  Bobby announced.  “But first of all, Kyra’s gonna stay with Crowley and me, so everyone can shut up about the options and Lucifer and this and fucking  - sorry – this’n that.  Cabin won’t do if we’ve got a kid, so I’m gonna find a place not too far away.  If I stay in this damn burrow, I’m gonna lose my mind.  Okay.  Now you, Crowley.”

“I can’t apologise to you, Sheriff Mills,”  Crowley said.  Bobby started to growl a protest but Crowley sent a swift glance his way and he subsided.  “I can’t apologise because there’s no way to back off from what I did.  In human terms, it’s inexcusable.”  He pondered for a moment and Jody waited, eyebrows raised and arms folded.  “I can’t ask for forgiveness.”  At that, he couldn’t stop himself looking at Sam, remembering that moment in the church, in the throes of the demon trials, where he had pleaded with Sam to know where to begin.  As a demon, there was nowhere he could stand.  “What I can do is make you a promise.  You know what I am;  if you don’t know what my word is to me, Bobby can tell you.  Even Sam or Dean can tell you.  I don’t back off from it.  If you ever need a favour I can fulfil, it’s yours.  A life or a death or something in-between.  I won’t come after you again, for anyone, and I’d appreciate the same from you.”  He looked at her directly and nodded, a slow gesture that was almost a bow.  “I can’t make it right – but I do regret doing it.”

He turned about and instead of his usual disappearance, left the room with considerable dignity.  Jody made a “whew” sort of sound and sat back down in her chair.

“ _That_ is a demon?”  she asked finally.

“He’s a mite different from most of ‘em,”  Bobby agreed, with something of hopeful pride in his voice.  Jody struggled to find words, looking at him and then at Kyra beside him.  “But he – ah – he meant it about his word.  Remember that favour.  I don’t know if you can forgive him, even now.  I’m not sure I could, if it was me.  Sometimes you had to look real close at the small print, to make sure the deal was what you thought it was.”  He chuckled, not as though he really thought it was funny.  “I learned that the hard way with the deal I made with him.  He only had to make best efforts, best endeavours, to keep it, somethin’ like that, and I didn’t bloody know it.  But even at the end, he could have taken the part about the legs, even though I said not to.  He could have….”  He shook his head, lost in the memories.  “It’s, ah, it’s good to see you, Jody.”

“You too,”  she said quietly, and for a moment no one spoke.  They sat together in the old bunker of the Men of Letters, five humans taking a rare break in the tumultuous lives of the hunters.  Presently Sam spoke to Jody, suggesting she stay the night and he or Dean would drive her back in the morning.  She nodded and went with him while he sorted out clean linen for her.  Dean took the chance to head off also.  He looked weary, Bobby thought;  even Dean could wear out if he wasn’t careful, and those boys were never careful.

“C’mon, it’s well after time you should be in bed,”  he told Kyra, and busied himself getting her settled.  Once that was done, he realised he was also weary.  He had been used to reading and researching all night, but too much had happened in the past few days and it seemed to be catching up with him.  He headed to the kitchen to grab a glass of water to take to the bedroom with him and found Jody there, just leaning a hand on one of the fridges.  Waiting for him, evidently.  Bobby nodded warily to her and continued on his errand, turned with the glass in his hand.

“Boys gone to bed?”  he asked and she nodded, smiling slightly.

“Kyra?”

“Yeah.”

“And Crowley?”

“He don’t have to sleep, but he’s probably in the room.”

“The room you share with him?”

Bobby felt his face heat up and desperately hoped he wasn’t visibly blushing.  The beard helped;  one reason he’d kept one since he was first able to grow it.  He muttered something inarticulate that had the word “yeah” somewhere in it.

“I still can’t believe you died, you know,”  Jody said quietly.  “I mean, it’s easier to believe you just went off the radar for a few years and came back.  It’s not like I saw it happen.  But I made Sam tell me about it, just now.  They gave you a hunter’s funeral, Bobby; they burned you on a goddamned pyre.”  She came over to him and gripped his forearm suddenly.  “So how can you be solid and real?  This scares the crap out of me, that there are beings who could do that….because you could lead them to Lucifer, Sam said.”

“I told you that too.”

“I wasn’t exactly tracking all that well while you were talking;  I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”  She shook her head, half angry and half incredulous, still keeping her hand on his arm.  “And _him._   I nearly choked to death in a fucking restaurant restroom because he threw a deathspell at me out of sheer maliciousness.  Because the boys had saved my life once and he was unpicking every life they ever saved.  You can’t trust him, Bobby.  He doesn’t figure things the way a human does…”

“He was human,”  Bobby said in a low voice.  “His vessel is human.  What did that to you was….”  He put down his glass on the kitchen table, afraid he was going to shatter it with his grip.  “I can’t defend him, Jody,”  he growled in frustration.  “But he’s not what he was then.”

“He’s the King of Hell, then and now,”  Jody retorted.  “And you plan to keep house with him and that child?”

“Yeah.  I do.”

“Then have a backup plan, Bobby.  An exit strategy.  Do that much.”  He met her worried gaze and after a long moment, nodded.  Jody looked a bit more relieved.  “Are you going to come back to Sioux Falls?”  she asked.

“No.  Even if I can convince folks I just went away, like you said, was out of town when Singer Salvage burned, it’s gonna feel too weird.  I figure I’ll find a place in town here, where I can stay in touch with Sam and Dean.  Nobody knows me in the town;  I think it’ll suit.  We’ll have to disguise Kyra somehow so nobody recognises her, get her some fake ID, but that shouldn’t be too hard.”

Jody was still watching him, with her cop face on, as Bobby thought of it.  He honestly couldn’t tell what she was thinking or whether he’d eased her fears about Crowley at all.  He awkwardly picked up his glass of water again.  “Well, anyway, we can talk in the morning before you head off.  Guess we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

She nodded and after exchanging vague pleasantries, Bobby left for bed.  He closed the door behind him with a sense of escape, which was damn stupid.  Jody was his friend;  they had done a lot for one another and it was only right she should be part of the inner circle now.  Crowley was in bed and had turned the lamp down, so the room was shadowy and cavelike.  He turned but didn’t speak as Bobby undressed and got into the bed.  The hunter expected questions or snarky comments about the evening or Jody or any of it, but the other man only sighed briefly and moved into his embrace, running a hand down Bobby’s chest in a way that made him shiver.

“Not too tired, love?”  he murmured, stroking lower.  Bobby growled softly and Crowley laughed, as he felt the hunter’s hands on him in return, deliciously strong and demanding.  He turned in response to Bobby’s urging as the hunter pulled himself over Crowley, his hardening cock pushing against Crowley’s own. 

“Think I’m startin’ to work this out,”  Bobby murmured, making Crowley laugh again, a surprisingly sweet sound.  He had been amazingly gentle, encouraging Bobby to touch him and to tell him what he liked, never making fun of his awkwardness, which couldn’t, the hunter thought, have been anything like sexy, and generally being his coach in an area of sexual relations Bobby had never expected to enter.  Pun included.

“I should hope so, darling, “ he said now, but a few moments later Bobby realised he had in fact forgotten something.

“Oh yeah, the lube…”

“Never mind;  you’re with a demon, love.”

“Don’t _say_ stuff like that,”  Bobby’s growl this time wasn’t out of passion.  He felt the cool touch of lube on his penis, without any hand needing to put it there.  Well, Crowley might have a point

Words were soon far from his mind;  there was only he and Crowley and he could forget anything and anyone else.  He was in Crowley and the other man was pressed against him, his cock trapped between their bodies, crying out in some language Bobby didn’t even recognise, as he came, followed swiftly by Crowley, who clung to him, his hand stroking down Bobby’s cheek, as he shuddered in his release.  _Should move_ , Bobby thought vaguely, _should clean up_ , but he was so sleepy now, even as he moved out of Crowley, breathing hard but steadily as he lay down in the bed.

Crowley was petting him, stroking first his face, then along his neck and shoulder, murmuring quiet words in that language Bobby couldn’t place.  “What’re you saying?”  he mumbled, reaching to stroke Crowley’s hair and pull him close again.

“My love,”  came the quiet whisper, “my heart.”

Yet at that moment of all moments, Bobby Singer heard Jody Mills’ anxious, suspicious tone, like his own conscience, as she warned him of Crowley:  _You can’t trust him.  Then have a back up plan, Bobby.  An exit plan._   It was in answer to that traitorous voice that he grasped Crowley’s solid shoulder, buried his face against his neck.  “Stay with me,”  he said.  “Keep me here.”  Even he could not have explained to anyone at that moment what he meant, but something in him said that here was his hope of happiness, in amidst all the chaos that went with being a hunter, and for Crowley in being what he was.  Bobby Singer threw aside all vestiges of dignity and wrapped his arms around Crowley, hugging him tightly, rolling so that he was pulling Crowley on top of him.  Crowley went with it, continuing to murmur soft endearments.  Bobby was still hearing him as he fell asleep.

 

The end for now.   A sequel is planned

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been trying to decide where to pause this and thought here was probably a good spot. Jody has been brought into the club, so to speak, and while she'll take a while to get over the shock of the two revelations - Bobby being back and Crowley being 'Roderick' - she's nothing if not resilient. From here they will turn to other concerns; continuing the hunt for Lucifer [readers can assume roughly that canon happens in terms of the discovery that Lucifer has taken over a rock star and later, the President of the United States!]
> 
> Crowley, amid his other concerns, will agree to help Castiel in his search, while Bobby tries to settle back into a life as researcher of the supernatural, hunter and foster-father and the Winchesters continue to do what they do best; cutting a bloody swathe through any evil they encounter.


End file.
